Columbia  Sani&crsita  Hectares 


MEDIEVAL   STORY 

THE  HEWITT  LECTURES 
1911 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

SALES  AGENTS 

NEW  YORK: 

LEMCKE  &  BUECHNER 

30-32  WEST  27ra  STREET 

LONDON  I 

HENRY  FROWDE 

AMEN  CORNER,  E.G. 

TORONTO I 

HENRY  FROWDE 

25  EICHMOND  ST.,  W. 


COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


MEDIEVAL  STORY 

AND    THE    BEGINNINGS    OF    THE    SOCIAL 
IDEALS  OF  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  PEOPLE 


BY 


WILLIAM  WITHERLE  LAWRENCE,  PH.D. 

ASSOCIATE   PROFESSOR    OF    ENGLISH   IN 
COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


-it;' 


JStia  gotfe 

THE   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY   PRESS 
1911 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1911, 
BY  THE  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  September,  191 1. 


Norton oti 

J.  8.  Cashing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO 

BKANDEB,  MATTHEWS 

INTERPRETER    OF    THE    LITERATURE    AND    LIFE 
OF    MODERN    TIMES 


242366 


PREFACE 

IN  accordance  with  the  terms  of  the  Hewitt  Founda- 
tion, the  following  lectures,  delivered  during  the  months 
of  February  and  March,  1911,  at  Cooper  Union  in  New 
York  City,  are  herewith  issued  in  book  form. 

It  seems  desirable  to  remind  the  reader  who  is  un- 
familiar with  the  conditions  under  which  the  Hewitt 
Lectures  are  given  that  they  are  designed,  in  part  at  least, 
for  a  less  academic  audience  than  that  usually  in  attend- 
ance upon  lectures  given  under  the  auspices  of  Columbia 
University.  In  the  present  instance,  no  acquaintance 
with  medieval  literature,  nor,  indeed,  any  interest  in  it 
on  the  part  of  the  audience  could  be  taken  for  granted. 
The  course  was  therefore  designed  primarily  to  reveal 
the  charm  of  this  literature,  and  its  significance  for 
modern  times.  With  this  end  in  view,  such  narrative 
poetry  was  selected  for  analysis  as  would  best  illustrate 
a  single  theme,  —  the  development  of  social  ideals  in  the 
history  of  the  English  people.  The  successive  lectures 
were,  however,  mainly  devoted  to  discussing  this  early 
poetry  as  literature,  in  the  belief  that  an  understanding 
of  its  subject-matter,  its  origins,  and  its  spirit  would  best 
lead  to  a  comprehension  of  its  significance  as  an  index 
of  social  progress.  It  should  perhaps  be  stated  that  while 
the  general  outline  of  each  lecture  was  strictly  adhered 
to  in  actual  delivery  before  the  audience,  the  manuscript 
was  not  closely  followed,  much  of  the  speaking  being 
extemporaneous. 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

In  preparing  the  lectures  for  the  press,  few  changes 
have  been  made.  The  writer  feels  that  the  published 
volume  ought  to  represent  the  aims  of  the  Foundation, 
which  was  not  to  appeal  to  a  restricted  audience  of 
scholars.  Consequently  this  book  is  designed  for  the 
general  reader  rather  than  for  the  specialist.  Whenever 
it  has  seemed  best  to  emphasize  a  point  familiar  to  every 
student,  this  has  been  done  without  hesitation.  Illustra- 
tive material  from  other  medieval  sources  than  those  dis- 
cussed here  has  been  sparingly  introduced,  since  the 
unfamiliar  is  seldom  truly  illuminating.  No  space  has 
been  devoted  to  the  discussion  of  disputed  questions ; 
the  position  which  appears  to  the  author  most  reasonable 
has  been  adopted  without  comment.  Since  the  aim  of 
the  book  is  to  make  medieval  literature  seem  real  and 
vital,  the  apparatus  of  scholarship  has  been  discarded ; 
footnotes  have  been  dispensed  with  so  far  as  possible,  and 
learned  citations  avoided.  The  reader  who  desires  further 
information  will  find  in  the  appendix  directions  for  more 
detailed  study. 

Although  the  volume  is  not  primarily  designed  for 
those  who  are  familiar  with  the  Middle  Ages,  the  writer 
hopes  that  they  may  not  find  it  without  interest,  as  pre- 
senting familiar  material  from  a  point  of  view  which 
should  make  it  as  significant  for  the  historian  and  the 
sociologist  as  for  the  student  of  literature.  It  is  well, 
too,  even  for  those  whose  knowledge  is  most  profound, 
to  forget  learning  occasionally,  and  to  view  these  old 
poems  as  human  documents,  as  the  records  of  the  imagina- 
tion and  of  the  aspiration  of  our  remoter  ancestors. 

Finally,  the  writer  would  express  his  gratitude  for  the 
generous  assistance  of  his  colleagues,  Professor  Harry 
Morgan  Ayres  and  Professor  George  Philip  Krapp,  in 


PREFACE  IX 

reading  manuscript  and  proof.  His  greatest  debt,  how- 
ever, is  to  Professor  Brander  Matthews,  to  whose  friendly 
interest  and  aid  is  due  more  than  can  easily  be  stated. 

WILLIAM  WITHERLE  LAWRENCE. 
MAY  29, 1911. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  I  — INTRODUCTION 

PAGES 

General  acceptance  of  the  theory  of  popular  government 
at  the  present  time,  but  lack  of  complete  success  in  practice 

—  The  social  problems  of  democracy  —  Awakening  of  na- 
tional conscience  in  the  United  States  to-day;  not  an  indi- 
cation of  changed  conditions  so  much  as  an  assertion  of 
national  idealism  —  Formation  of  the  character  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples;    Anglo-Saxon,  French,   Celtic,   and 
Scandinavian  elements.     The  same  added  to  the  "  melting- 
pot"  of   nineteenth-century  America  —  Distinctive  contri- 
bution of  each  of   these  elements   to  English   character, 
and  process  of  fusion  into  a   single  people  considered  in 
following  lectures  —  Basis  of  discussion  stories  illustrating 
early  conceptions  of  heroism,  patriotism,  religion,  courtesy, 
the  position  of  woman,  etc.  —  Why  such  stories  are  a  better 
index  to  social  conditions  than  modern  literature  is  —  In 
what  sense  they  are  "popular"  —  Differences  between  me- 
dieval and  modern  story-telling —  Illustration  of  the  earlier 
method  by  reference  to  the  poetry  of  Kipling  —  Significance 

of  early  literature  for  an  understanding  of  modern  times  .     .  1-26 

LECTURE  II  — BEOWULF 

An  epic  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  settlers  in  Britain,  yet  deal- 
ing with  foreign  subject-matter,  and  in  no  sense  patriotic  — 
Reasons  for  this  —  Outline  of  the  poem  —  Three  main  ad- 
ventures :  fight  with  the  demon  Grendel,  with  the  mother 
of  Grendel,  and  with  the  Dragon  —  How  these  fairy-tale 
episodes  are  transformed  and  given  dignity  by  background 
of  history  and  legend,  chiefly  Scandinavian  —  Inconsisten- 
cies in  the  story  explained  by  the  conditions  of  its  growth 

—  Beowulf  as  ideal  king  and  ideal  hero  —  Is  he  a  divinity 
become  mortal?  —  Pagan  and  Christian  elements  in  the 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

PAGE8 

poem  —  The  place  of  woman  —  Social  conditions;  the  aris- 
tocratic spirit  of  the  poem  —  The  ideals  of  this  epic  and  of 
modern  times  .  .  .  .  •  ...  .  27-53 

LECTURE  III  — THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND 

The  epic  of  the  Norman  conquerors  of  England  —  Its 
wide  and  lasting  popularity  —  Its  patriotism,  and  lack  of 
interest  in  other  nations  —  Political  condition  sin  the  eighth 
and  eleventh  centuries  —  Outline  of  story :  Roland's  be- 
trayal; Roland's  death;  Roland  avenged — How  a  national 
epic  was  made  out  of  French  treachery  and  defeat  —  Possi- 
ble extenuating  circumstances  in  the  treason  of  Ganelon  — 
Character  of  Roland,  of  Charlemagne,  and  of  Oliver —  Re- 
ligious elements;  position  of  woman  —  Summary:  advance 
of  this  poem  over  the  ideals  of  Beowulf .  ...  55-84 

LECTURE  IV  — THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES 

Mark  Twain's  attack  on  the  social  ideals  of  chivalry  in 
A  Connecticut  Yankee  in  King  Arthur's  Court  —  Why  his 
book  is  misleading  —  Social  advances  marked  by  system  of 
chivalry  —  Origins  of  the  story  of  King  Arthur  in  Celtic 
history  and  Celtic  imagination  —  Crudities  of  early  forms  of 
story  —  Later  elaborations ;  Arthur  becomes  ideal  monarch 
of  feudal  period  —  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  —  Influence  of  the 
French  in  shaping  the  story  —  The  contribution  of  Pro- 
vence; Aucassin  and  Nicolete  —  The  new  importance  of 
woman  —  Duties  of  Arthurian  knights  towards  ladies  in 
general  —  Magic  and  mystery  of  Arthurian  romance;  its 
absurdities  and  how  they  are  redeemed  —  Humanitarian 
elements  —  The  Arthurian  legends  as  illustrations  of  social 
ideals  in  modern  times  —  Tennyson's  Idylls  of  the  King.  85-112 

LECTURE  V  — THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL 

The  Crusades  ;  the  Knights  Templars ;  relations  between 
chivalry  and  religion  —  Idealism  and  unpractical  character 
of  expeditions  to  the  Holy  Land  reflected  in  stories  of  Quest 
of  Holy  Grail  —  Outline  of  earlier  form  of  the  legend ;  Per- 
ceval the  hero  —  The  work  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  — 
Probable  pagan  origin  of  the  legend  —  Its  transformation 


CONTENTS  xiii 

PAGES 

through  Christian  symbolism  —  Later  form  of  the  story ; 
Galahad  the  hero  —  Sir  Thomas  Malory ;  Tennyson ;  Lowell's 
Sir  Launfal —  Asceticism  and  narrowness  of  later  forms  of 
the  legend,  yet  always  embodiment  of  highest  chivalric 
ideal  .  113-141 

LECTURE  VI  — THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  Fox 

Antiquity  and  wide  distribution  of  stories  in  which  ani- 
mals speak  and  act  as  men  —  Their  popular  character ;  how 
they  reflect  the  age  and  the  society  which  produces  them  — 
Modern  examples :  Joel  Chandler  Harris's  Tales  of  Uncle 
Remus,  Kipling's  Jungle  Books  and  Just-So  Stories — The 
Romance  of  Reynard;  a  satire  on  medieval  life  —  The  hero 
and  some  of  the  principal  figures —  Typical  scene :  Reynard 
at  the  court  of  King  Noble  the  Lion  —  Significance  of  this 
story  for  social  conditions  in  the  Middle  Ages  —  A  protest 
against  aristocratic  abuses 143-168 

LECTURE  VII  — THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD 

Differences  between  ballads  and  poetry  hitherto  consid- 
ered —  The  songs  of  the  Western  cowboys  —  Influence  of 
ballads  on  modern  poetry  —  Relation  between  popular  bal- 
lads and  the  epic  —  Robin  Hood  almost  an  epic  hero ;  the 
origin  of  his  figure  —  His  life  and  deeds  —  His  character  — 
The  Gest  of  Robin  Hood  —  The  « outlaw "  and  official 
authority  —  Conflicting  conceptions  of  justice  —  Robin 
Hood's  relations  with  the  Sheriff  of  Nottingham ;  with  the 
clergy ;  with  the  king  —  Robin  Hood's  Death  —  This  group 
of  ballads  the  expression  of  the  feeling  of  the  common 
people  in  regard  to  social  conditions;  how  different  from 
Reynard  the  Fox 169-194 

LECTURE   VIII  — THE  CANTERBURY  TALES 

Description  of  the  Canterbury  Pilgrimage  —  A  complete 
picture  of  the  society  of  the  fourteenth  century  —  Its  com- 
plexity as  compared  with  the  society  of  earlier  times  — 
Aristocratic  and  democratic  tendencies  in  stories  told  by 
different  characters  —  The  Wife  of  Bath's  Tale;  the  stories 


xiv  CONTENTS 

PAGES 

of  the  common  folk  —  Social  satire  —  The  life  of  Chaucer; 
his  special  fitness  to  paint  such  a  picture  as  this  —  How  far 
medieval  and  how  far  modern  in  his  attitude  —  Importance 
of  the  Canterbury  Tales  as  a  social  document — Transition 
to  modern  literary  methods  beginning ;  emergence  of  the 
author  —  Retrospect  and  conclusion  ....  195-223 

APPENDIX  —  SUGGESTIONS     FOR    SUPPLEMENTARY    READ- 
ING      225-232 

INDEX  233-236 


I 

INTRODUCTION 


"  Let  me  make  the  ballads  of  a  nation, 
and  who  will  may  make  its  laws." 


INTRODUCTION 

EARLY  in  the  month  of  March,  1910,  the  daily  papers 
of  New  York  City  reported  that  there  had  just  been 
unusual  excitement  in  the  little  principality  of  Monaco. 
The  home  of  the  most  famous  gambling  establishment 
in  the  world  has  always  known  excitement  enough; 
the  sunny  skies  of  Monte  Carlo  have  looked  down 
on  many  a  tragedy  of  blighted  hopes  and  ruined  for- 
tunes. This  particular  disturbance,  however,  was  of 
quite  another  sort,  arousing  no  interest  among  the 
hectic  figures  hanging  about  the  gambling  tables  in 
the  casino,  but  affecting  the  residents  of  the  principality 
itself.  The  streets  of  the  capital  had  been  filled  with 
a  hurrying  crowd,  and  noisy  with  the  sound  of  many 
voices  raised  in  eager  discussion.  Nearly  half  of  the 
male  population  of  this  little  country  had  marched  to 
the  palace,  and  demanded  —  a  constitution !  They  had 
declared,  so  the  account  runs,  "that  Monaco  was  the 
only  absolute  monarchy  remaining  on  the  face  of  the 
globe/7  and  that  the  time  for  a  change  had  come.  Then- 
protest  was  heeded ;  the  prince  of  Monaco  received  a 
deputation  from  the  crowd,  and  promised  to  consider 
its  wishes. 

This  episode,  though  unimportant  in  itself,  is  not 
without  a  certain  significance.  It  illustrates  the  triumph 

3 


MEDIEVAL  STORY 


of  the  democratic  theory  of  government,  the  conviction 
of  the  people  that  their  right  to  have  a  voice  in  the 
making  of  the  laws  may  now  be  considered  established, 
and  the  recognition  of  the  ruling  powers  that  such  a  right 
cannot  be  denied  them.  The  acceptance  of  this  prin- 
ciple has  come  about  within  a  comparatively  short  time. 
Scarcely  more  than  a  century  ago,  the  Empress  Cath- 
erine the  Great  of  Russia  is  said  to  have  expressed 
the  belief  that  kings  and  queens  should  be  as  little  dis- 
turbed by  the  cries  of  the  people  as  the  moon  is  by  the 
baying  of  dogs.  But  not  much  is  heard  of  such  views 
nowadays.  Occasionally,  it  is  true,  an  echo  of  bygone 
despotism  disturbs  the  Continent,  but  the  popular  an- 
swer to  such  doctrine  leaves  little  doubt  as  to  whence  the 
sovereign's  power  is  really  derived.  The  present  Czar 
of  Russia  is  perhaps  the  most  autocratic  monarch  in 
Europe,  but  he  is  obliged  to  mask  his  absolutism  be- 
hind a  show  of  constitutional  government.  He  may 
act  in  accord  with  the  sentiments  of  his  illustrious  prede- 
cessor the  Empress  Catherine,  but  he  would  never 
dream  of  avowing  them  himself.  The  very  fact  that 
it  is  felt  necessary  in  Russia  to  maintain  this  pretense 
is  significant  of  better  times  and  of  a  changed  order  of 
things.  The  Oriental  countries,  too,  have  been  deeply 
affected  by  liberal  ideals  in  recent  years.  Persia  has 
for  some  time  been  struggling  to  make  constitutional 
government  effective.  The  recent  deposition  of  Abdul 
Hamid  from  the  throne  of  Turkey  may  well  be  a  warn- 
ing to  Oriental  sovereigns  who  fail  to  note  the  dangers 
of  acknowledged  despotism.  It  is  a  wise  ruler  who  heeds 
the  signs  of  the  times,  and  this  sign  is  indeed  plain  for 
all  to  see.  "The  most  striking  and  impressive  of  all 


INTRODUCTION  5 

movements  of  the  century ,"  says  President  Butler,  after 
reminding  us  how  crowded  this  time  has  been  with 
epoch-making  events,  "is  the  political  development  to- 
ward the  form  of  government  known  as  democracy." 

Yet  this  practically  universal  acceptance  of  liberal 
institutions  really  settles  nothing  definitively;  it  is 
the  victory  of  an  ideal  rather  than  of  a  practical  system. 
We  are  everywhere  reminded  that  it  is  only  a  phase  of 
the  great  struggle  between  aristocracy  and  democracy, 
which  has  been  going  on  for  hundreds  of  years.  The 
sequel  to  the  uprising  in  Monaco  affords  an  amusing 
illustration  of  this ;  a  constitution  was  indeed  granted 
to  the  principality,  but  so  ingeniously  was  this  devised 
that  little  real  benefit  was  secured  to  the  people.  As 
Dr.  Dillon  humorously  remarks,  "  Prince  Albert  dis- 
cerned with  joy  that  he  would  have  to  perform  a  kind 
of  constitutional  egg-dance,  to  give  with  one  hand  and 
take  away  with  the  other. "  But  Monaco  is  not  the 
only  locality  in  which  egg-dances  are  in  vogue.  Here 
in  America  it  has  taken  us  a  long  time  to  see  that  a 
republic  may  be  as  oligarchic  as  a  monarchy,  to  recog- 
nize, as  Lowell  once  said,  "that  popular  government 
is  not  in  itself  a  panacea,  is  no  better  than  any  other 
except  as  the  virtue  and  wisdom  of  the  people  make 
it  so."  We  live  in  a  country  which  affords  the  most 
conspicuous  example  of  materially  successful  popular 
government  on  the  globe,  yet  democracy  is  in  one  sense 
as  much  an  issue  now  as  it  was  when  the  embattled 
farmers  made  a  stand  at  the  bridge  at  Concord,  and 
fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world.  Our  concern  at 
present  is  to  make  the  principles  for  which  those  men 
fought  effective  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the  letter; 


6  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

to  be  sure  that  we  are  not  forgetting  that  in  a  republic 
every  man  should  have  a  fair  chance,  and  that  no  class 
should  enjoy  privileges  to  which  it  is  not  justly  entitled. 
We  hear  this  statement  on  every  hand,  both  from  the 
popular  writer  and  the  philosophic  thinker.  A  recent 
periodical  sums  up  the  paramount  issues  now  facing  the 
great  political  parties  as  "  between  Oligarchy  and  De- 
mocracy; between  rule  by  the  few  and  rule  by  the 
many/'  giving  as  illustrations  the  management  of  our 
colonial  possessions,  the  election  of  officials  through 
direct  primaries,  the  labor  question,  the  regulation  of 
railways,  and  the  conservation  of  natural  resources.  A 
close  student  of  American  politics,  Mr.  William  Garrott 
Brown,  has  defined  the  situation  in  a  similar  way. 
"We  are  confronted, "  he  says,  "with  the  problem  of 
adapting  the  democratic  principle  to  conditions  that 
did  not  exist  when  our  American  democracy  arose  in 
the  world :  that  is  to  say,  to  a  field  no  longer  unlimited, 
to  opportunities  no  longer  boundless,  and  to  an  indus- 
trial order  in  which  competition  is  no  longer  the  control- 
ling principle,  an  industrial  order  which  is,  therefore,  no 
longer  democratic,  but  increasingly  oligarchical,  which 
may  even  become,  in  a  way,  monarchical,  dynastic." 
There  must  inevitably  be  many  honest  differences  of 
opinion  as  to  how  far  popular  government  may  be  ad- 
ministered effectively  without  putting  great  power  into 
the  hands  of  a  small  number  of  men.  Lord  Cromer  has 
called  attention  to  the  weakness  of  the  Athenian  Com- 
monwealth, especially  after  the  death  of  Pericles,  — 
"the  only  example  the  history  of  the  world  can  show 
of  an  absolute  democracy  —  that  is  to  say  /of  a  govern- 
ment in  which  power  was  exercised  by  the  people 


INTRODUCTION  7 

directly,  and  not  through  the  intermediary  of  their  rep- 
resentatives. The  fact  that  the  experiment  has  never 
been  repeated  is  in  itself  an  almost  sufficient  proof  that 
the  system,  in  spite  of  the  very  intense  and  ennobling 
spirit  of  patriotism  which  it  certainly  engendered,  was 
a  complete  failure.77 

Making  a  democracy  effective  in  practice  as  well  as 
in  theory  is  of  course  quite  as  much  a  social  as  a  political 
problem,  and  of  late  this  broader  point  of  view  has  been 
receiving  constantly  increasing  attention.  Issues  which 
were  formerly  considered  purely  as  a  part  of  govern- 
mental administration  are  now  frequently  examined  as 
ethical  problems.  The  right  of  the  state  to  exercise 
control  over  private  business  for  the  good  of  the  public 
is -an  admirable  illustration  of  that  democracy  which 
is  founded  upon  social  sympathy,  which  insists  upon 
a  generous  cooperation  among  the  different  members 
of  a  free  state.  In  this  sense  the  problems  of  democracy 
are  manifold,  and  they  are  occupying  the  attention  of 
the  public  now  as  never  before  in  years.  Abuses  of 
privilege  are  pilloried  on  every  hand;  magazines  and 
newspapers  are  full  of  exposures  of  the  misuse  of  power ; 
current  novels  and  dramas  exhibit  the  conflicts  between 
generosity  and  selfishness,  between  uprightness  and 
knavery,  which  arise  in  such  a  complex  social  order  as 
ours.  Dr.  Washington  Gladden  has  recently  urged  the 
necessity  of  a  more  democratic  church,  asserting  that 
too  small  a  proportion  of  the  public  ministry  is  devoted 
to  true  social  service.  The  issue  is  clothed  in  a  multi- 
tude of  forms,  but  its  underlying  spirit  remains  the  same. 

This  awakening  of  the  national  conscience  is  a  new 
thing,  the  growth  of  the  past  few  years.  Although  it 


8  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

has  been  used  to  further  political  ends,  it  is  not  the 
result  of  agitation ;  it  is  an  expression  of  popular  senti- 
ment. In  times  of  prosperity  a  country  is  likely  to 
lapse  into  complacency,  which  makes  our  present  desire 
to  set  our  house  in  order  all  the  more  striking.  Such  an 
awakening  is  comprehensible  enough  when  it  precedes 
a  great  struggle ;  the  War  of  the  Rebellion  was  fought 
for  an  ideal  of  democracy  as  well  as  for  more  material 
issues,  and  the  Revolution  might  have  been  avoided  if 
sentiment  could  have  been  sacrificed  to  expediency. 
There  are  those,  indeed,  who  see  analogies  to  such  times 
of  upheaval  at  the  present  day.  A  well-known  magazine, 
which  is  not  given  to  exploiting  sensations,  publishes 
an  article  which  aims  to  show  "that  the  causes  of  the 
political  and  industrial  crises  through  which  we  are 
passing  to-day  are  the  same  as  the  causes  of  the  most 
momentous  episode  of  our  history,  the  Civil  War." 
But  whatever  we  may  think  of  the  resemblances  be- 
tween the  conditions  of  fifty  years  ago  and  those  of  the 
present  day,  we  must  recognize  that  the  differences  are 
equally  striking.  Historical  parallels  are  likely  to  be 
misleading,  not  because  the  events  of  one  age  do  not 
find  their  counterpart  in  a  later  time,  but  because  these 
events  are  complicated  by  many  other  issues,  which  may 
apparently  be  unimportant,  but  which  may  really  exert 
a  profound  and  even  determining  influence  upon  the 
ultimate  outcome.  Decision  in  regard  to  such  matters 
is  difficult.  Modern  civilization  is  too  complex  a  mech- 
anism to  yield  readily  to  analysis,  and  we  are  too 
near  to  our  own  times  to  see  them  in  true  perspective. 
Of  this  much,  however,  we  may  feel  certain ;  that  the 
view  that  present  conditions  give  rise  for  alarm  will 


INTRODUCTION  9 

hardly  command  the  assent  of  the  thoughtful  majority. 
Indeed,  these  very  conditions  may  perhaps  be  a  sign  of 
better  times  to  come,  of  new  hope  for  the  future. 

Is  it  not  that  we  have  suddenly  become  sensitive  to 
problems  of  social  ethics  rather  than  that  such  problems 
are  assuming  darker  aspects  than  in  the  past  thirty  or 
forty  years  ?  The  exposure  of  the  Tweed  ring  in  New 
York  City  indicated  political  corruption  more  shame- 
less than  any  existing  to-day,  but  it  was  followed  by 
no  such  demands  for  sweeping  reform  as  modern  revela- 
tions of  a  less  flagrant  sort  have  called  forth.  We  have 
really  been  meeting  difficulties  akin  to  those  of  the  pres- 
ent day  for  many  years,  and  the  fact  that  we  are  now 
unusually  conscious  of  these  difficulties  may  not  mean 
that  they  are  more  serious  to-day  than  they  were  at 
times  when  the  conscience  of  the  country  was  com- 
fortably at  rest.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  English- 
speaking  people  to  be  jealous  of  their  rights  and  privi- 
leges, and  to  stand  out  against  oppression.  It  is 
characteristic  of  them,  too,  to  preserve  a  sense  of  justice 
toward  their  fellows,  and  not  to  tolerate  continued 
abuses  of  this  justice.  With  a  keen  interest  in  prac- 
tical affairs,  they  have  always  preserved  an  idealism  of 
their  own,  which  may  sometimes  seem  to  be  slumbering, 
but  which  now  and  again  breaks  forth  and  manifests 
itself  in  unmistakable  fashion.  May  it  not  be,  then, 
that  this  finer  side  of  our  national  character  is  now 
asserting  itself,  that  all  this  restlessness  of  the  present 
day  is  an  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  enduring  power 
of  civic  ideals  ? 

If  we  would  truly  understand  the  spirit  of  modern 
America,  we  must  look  across  the  water  to  Great  Britain, 


10  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  country  which  Hawthorne  felicitously  called  "Our 
Old  Home/7  Blood  is  still  thicker  than  water,  and  we 
still  share  with  our  British  cousins  much  the  same  polit- 
ical ideals,  in  spite  of  their  sharper  division  into  classes, 
and  their  monarchical  form  of  government.  Our  kin- 
ship with  them  and  our  debt  to  them  must  not  be  lightly 
forgotten.  The  United  States  are  often  called  a  ' i  melting- 
pot,  "  into  which  are  poured  emigrants  from  many  foreign 
nations,  and  out  of  which  they  emerge  as  the  hardened 
metal  of  American  citizens.  Such  foreigners  have  some- 
times retained  their  national  characteristics  so  strik- 
ingly that  we  think  of  so  distinguished  an  American 
as  Carl  Schurz,  who  has  often  spoken  in  Cooper  Union, 
as  a  German,  of  Petrosino  as  an  Italian,  or  of  Jacob 
Riis  as  a  Dane,  while  we  should  all  style  the  typi- 
cally American  Mr.  Dooley  "an  Irishman.''  So  we 
consider  our  democracy  as  the  product  of  many  such 
races  rather  than  as  the  achievement  of  any  one  of 
them.  This  is  true,  but  it  ought  not  to  make  us  forget 
that  the  beginnings  of  this  national  independence,  which 
these  men  have  done  so  much  to  strengthen,  were  due 
to  English  traditions  and  to  English  stock.  In  the 
words  of  Count  Apponyi,  we  "combine  audacity  of 
progress  with  tenacity  of  tradition/7  We  are  fond  of 
saying  that  the  true  spirit  of  modern  America  is  the 
same  which  animated  the  men  who  wrote  the  Consti- 
tution. But  the  principles  of  the  Revolutionary  heroes 
were  not  the  product  of  distinctively  American  con- 
ditions; they  were  fundamentally  the  same  principles 
which  had  been  brought  over  by  the  Pilgrims  and  the 
Puritans  when  they  sailed  to  the  New  World.  Con- 
temporary European  thought  no  doubt  affected  the 


INTRODUCTION  11 

phraseology  of  the  Revolutionary  watchwords,  but 
even  the  germinating  restlessness  which  culminated  in 
the  French  Revolution  was  of  secondary  importance. 
The  colonists  had  the  courage  to  resist  British  oppres- 
sion because  they  were  of  the  same  liberty-loving  race 
as  their  adversaries,  and  it  was  because  they  were  the 
direct  inheritors  of  the  spirit  of  Cromwell  and  Hamp- 
den  that  they  had  the  vigor  to  make  this  resistance  ef- 
fective against  overwhelming  odds.  The  foundations 
of  our  republic  rest  on  the  sterling  virtues  of  English 
character. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  foreigners  who  have  done 
most  to  influence  American  democracy  in  the  last  hun- 
dred years  have  been,  to  a  great  extent,  men  of  those 
very  peoples  which  went  to  make  up  the  parent  English 
stock  in  the  beginning.  No  one  needs  to  be  told  that 
the  English  are  a  composite  of  Germanic  and  Scandi- 
navian and  French  and  Celtic  elements,  and  that  when 
Columbus  discovered  America  these  elements  had  only 
just  been  fused  in  the  melting-pot  of  Britain,  but  we 
do  not  always  remember  that  the  Germans  and  the 
Scandinavians  and  the  French  and  the  Celts  who  come 
over  to  America  nowadays  add  no  really  foreign  ele- 
ments to  our  blood,  but  strengthen  it  by  the  addition 
of  the  very  elements  of  which  it  is  partly  composed 
already.  They  are  mixed  in  the  melting-pot  of  America, 
just  as  their  forefathers  were  in  the  melting-pot  of  the 
British  Isles.  And  they  bring  similar  characteristics 
with  them,  —  the  persistence  of  racial  distinctions  is 
most  surprising.  The  solidity  of  the  Scandinavian, 
the  enterprise  of  the  German,  the  gayety  of  the  French, 
the  enthusiasm  of  the  Celt,  were  the  same  a  dozen 


12  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

centuries  ago  as  they  are  to-day.  These  similarities 
must  not,  of  course,  be  over-emphasized.  National 
characteristics  are  now  less  easy  to  seize  and  to  define ; 
we  are  all  such  complex  beings  nowadays  that  it  is 
difficult  to  distinguish  these  characteristics  clearly. 
The  bark  is  easily  mistaken  for  the  timber.  But  the 
contributions  of  foreign  peoples  to  the  American  de- 
mocracy of  the  nineteenth  century  are  in  many  ways 
like  the  contributions  of  their  ancestors  to  the  making 
of  the  English  stock  many  hundreds  of  years  ago. 

In  the  lectures  to  follow  I  propose  that  we  look  closely 
at  these  different  races  in  the  beginning,  at  the  time 
when  they  were  first  combining  to  form  the  English 
people,  that  we  observe  their  characteristics,  and  com- 
pare them  with  their  descendants,  who  are  now  coming 
over  to  America  and  merging  with  a  nation  which  was 
really  made  up  of  their  own  ancestors  in  the  beginning. 
The  very  unlikeness  of  these  races  perhaps  explains 
why  the  English-speaking  group  descended  from  them 
shows  such  a  strange  mixture  of  strength  and  weakness, 
and  is  less  easily  classified  than  are  most  European 
peoples.  At  the  same  time  we  may  observe  their  early 
social  progress,  their  advance  from  a  simple  and  primi- 
tive community  to  a  social  system  ruled  by  caste  and 
governed  for  the  sole  interest  of  the  upper  classes,  and 
finally  to  the  beginnings  of  modern  democracy,  —  the 
recognition  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  the  demand 
on  the  part  of  the  people  themselves  that  their  rights 
be  considered. 

There  is,  I  believe,  no  better  way  for  our  purposes  in 
which  to  do  this  than  to  review  the  great  stories  which 
sprang  up  among  these  different  races  in  their  formative 


INTRODUCTION  13 

period,  stories  which  were  handed  down  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  until  the  recital  of  them  and  the 
perpetuation  of  them  became  an  inseparable  part  of 
national  life.  These  old  tales  are  interesting  in  them- 
selves, they  have  triumphantly  survived  the  test  of 
time,  they  charm  us  to-day  if  we  surrender  ourselves  to 
their  spell,  and  they  will  charm  our  descendants  after 
us.  But  more  than  this,  such  narratives  are  records 
of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  bygone  peoples,  they 
set  forth  the  ideals  for  which  those  peoples  strove, 
the  vices  they  hated,  the  ambitions  by  which  they  were 
animated,  more  faithfully  than  historical  documents  can 
do.  The  stories  themselves  may  be  simple  enough,  but 
the  details  of  the  adventures,  and  the  way  in  which  the 
whole  is  told,  show  clearly  what  sort  of  a  people  has 
created  an  Arthur  or  a  Roland  or  a  Beowulf  or  a  Reynard 
the  Fox.  Unconsciously,  too,  they  voice  the  aristo- 
cratic or  the  democratic  spirit  as  soon  as  class  distinctions 
begin  to  prevail  in  these  early  communities.  Through 
them  we  can  follow  the  progress  of  the  peoples  who 
have  made  the  English-speaking  race,  Saxon  and  Nor- 
man and  Dane  and  Celt.  In  the  limited  time  at  our 
command  we  cannot,  of  course,  undertake  the  difficult 
and  complicated  task  of  tracing  the  social  history  of 
the  English  people.  What  we  are  rather  to  do  is  to  get 
a  series  of  impressions,  as  vividly  as  may  be,  of  certain 
significant  periods,  in  which  the  very  age  and  body  of 
the  time  is,  through  these  old  tales,  shown  its  own  form 
and  pressure. 

First  of  all,  we  may  look  at  the  characteristics  of  that 
Germanic  people,  who,  settling  in  Britain  in  the  fifth 
century,  laid  the  foundations  of  England  as  a  nation. 


14  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

In  their  great  heroic  poem  'Beowulf  appear  those  con- 
ceptions of  honor,  bravery,  and  self-sacrifice  which  still 
mark  what  we  call  the  Anglo-Saxon  temperament. 
Next,  in  the  story  of  Roland  and  the  knights  of  Charle- 
magne, the  distinctive  contribution  of  the  French  to 
the  development  of  English  character  will  appear.  In 
many  ways  the  conquering  Normans  cherished  higher 
ideals  than  those  whom  they  subdued,  and  the  old 
tradition  that  they  marched  into  battle  at  Senlac  to  the 
sound  of  the  '  Song  of  Roland '  may  typify  fitly  enough 
the  victory  of  a  folk  whose  hero  was  distinguished  as 
much  for  patriotism  and  piety  as  for  prowess.  Still 
another  great  advance  is  marked  by  the  legends  of 
Arthur  and  the  knights  of  the  Round  Table.  These 
reveal  a  complete  break  with  the  institutions  of  earlier 
times,  a  complete  readjustment  of  social  conventions, 
not  always  for  the  better,  but  nevertheless  making  clear 
to  us  why  the  word  "  chivalry "  still  stands  to-day  for 
whatever  is  gentle  and  generous  in  the  relations  of  men 
and  women.  They  illustrate  in  great  measure,  too, 
the  characteristics  of  the  Celtic  temperament,  —  the 
magic  and  mystery,  the  soaring  imagination  and  "  revolt 
against  the  tyranny  of  fact  "  which  marks  such  modern 
work  as  the  poetry  of  Mr.  Yeats,  with  all  its  overlaid 
modern  romanticism.  The  romances  which  relate  the 
quest  of  Arthur's  knights  for  the  Holy  Grail  form 
particularly  striking  illustrations  of  the  religious  exalta- 
tion of  the  Middle  Ages  in  its  various  manifestations. 
No  branch  of  the  story  of  King  Arthur  has  exercised 
greater  fascination  upon  men  in  all  times  than  the  legends 
of  the  Grail.  But  at  this  point  we  must  observe  another 
side  of  the  picture.  Despite  their  high  ideals  of  courtesy 


INTRODUCTION  15 

toward  all  men,  the  Arthurian  romances  are  thoroughly 
aristocratic;  the  democratic  spirit  of  the  commons 
manifests  itself  in  the  '  History  of  Reynard  the  Fox/  that 
picturesque  villain  dear  to  the  hearts  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  in  the  story  of  Robin  Hood,  as  told  in  the  old  Eng- 
lish ballads.  Both  these  worthies  were  loved  for  the 
enemies  they  made  among  the  aristocracy;  but  while 
the  rascally  Reynard  ignored  law  and  defied  justice, 
Robin  Hood  attempted  to  set  things  straight  after  his 
own  fashion,  by  taking  justice  into  his  own  hands. 
Reynard  belongs  rather  to  the  imagination  of  the  Con- 
tinental peoples ;  but  Robin  Hood  is  a  distinctively 
English  creation,  and  in  no  way  more  so  than  that  his 
actions  reflect  the  English  love  of  fair  play,  that  they 
are  not  a  glorification  of  clever  and  unscrupulous  villainy. 
Finally,  in  the  '  Canterbury  Tales '  of  Chaucer,  we  shall 
see  all  classes  meeting  on  common  ground  for  the  first 
time  since  the  Norman  Conquest,  their  friendly  rela- 
tionship typifying  the  better  social  consciousness  which 
ushers  in  modern  history,  the  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  by  the  ruling  aristocracy,  the  beginning  of 
a  democratic  spirit  for  the  English  life  of  later  times. 

This  will  give  merely  a  series  of  suggestions  of  the 
social  ideals  of  certain  significant  periods ;  in  the  time 
at  our  disposal  we  cannot  hope  to  carry  the  discussion 
farther  than  this.  Our  study  will  take  no  account  of 
the  thousand  subtle  and  conflicting  influences  which 
so  complicate  the  social  history  of  any  nation.  It 
will  call  for  no  elaborate  background  of  historical  fact. 
There  are  the  stories ;  it  is  for  us  to  gather  the  meaning 
,  which  lies  beneath  the  surface,  to  see  how  it  is  that  they 
are  really  the  expression  of  national  character.  Their 


16  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

message  is  not  less  important  because  it  has  to  be  in- 
ferred. Historical  documents  state  facts;  whenever 
these  stories  present  historic  events,  they  distort  them. 
What  can  be  expected  of  a  narrative  which  asserts  that 
Charlemagne  was  two  hundred  years  old,  or  which 
makes  Arthur,  originally  a  half-savage  Celt  skulking 
among  the  Welsh  mountains,  the  peerless  monarch  of 
medieval  chivalry  ?  But  it  is  the  very  deviations  from 
history  that  are  significant  in  these  tales ;  not  the 
events  themselves,  as  historic  facts.  When  the  French 
make  a  new  story  out  of  the  deeds  of  a  Roland  or  an 
Arthur  their  very  additions  and  alterations  show  what 
sort  of  a  hero  they  considered  most  admirable,  what 
qualities  they  cherished  in  a  great  national  figure.  All 
this  is  what  gives  life  to  history,  if  you  admit  that  his- 
tory should  be  the  record  of  aspiration  as  well  as  of 
achievement. 

You  will  observe  that  we  are  to  deal  wholly  with 
early  stories,  not  taking  into  account  those  of  later 
times.  The  main  reason  for  this  limitation,  as  I  have 
already  said,  is  that  we  are  concerned  with  the  English 
people  in  the  days  when  they  were  being  welded  into 
a  nation,  not  with  their  subsequent  development.  But 
there  is  another  reason,  too.  Modern  literature  is  a  far 
less  trustworthy  guide  to  the  real  sentiments  of  a  people 
than  is  that  of  early  times  because  it  is  full  of  the 
personal  opinions  and  emotions  of  individual  writers. 
When  we  read  a  modern  novel,  we  are  likely  to  think 
of  the  author  as  well  as  of  the  story.  If  we  take  up 
'  David  Copperfield/  we  are  conscious  of  the  presence 
of  Dickens,  and  from  every  page  of  'Vanity  Fair'  speaks 
the  voice  of  Thackeray.  Early  story-telling,  on  the 


INTRODUCTION  17 

other  hand,  shows  little  of  all  this.  The  teller  of  the 
tale  was  of  little  account,  the  telling  was  the  important 
thing.  The  relation  between  narrator  and  audience 
was  completely  different  from  the  modern  relation  be- 
tween novelist  and  reader.  In  order  to  understand  this 
difference,  we  must  think  of  a  social  and  intellectual 
life  very  unlike  our  own. 

In  such  a  society  as  that  of  the  Germanic  tribes  who 
invaded  Britain  and  displaced  the  Celtic  inhabitants 
of  the  island,  a  society  which  was  in  effect  democratic, 
though  organized  on  an  aristocratic  basis,  all  men,  save 
the  slaves,  had  a  common  share  in  traditions  and  privi- 
leges. A  story  was  thus  a  part  of  the  heritage  of  every 
man.  He  knew  it  well,  and  even  if  he  could  not  repeat  it 
as  effectively  as  more  gifted  members  of  his  tribe,  he 
could  tell  it  to  his  children,  and  they  to  their  little  ones  in 
turn  in  the  years  to  come.  When  stories  were  thus  handed 
down  by  word  of  mouth,  and  when  they  might  be  told 
by  anyone,  every  man  was  in  a  sense  an  author,  since, 
if  he  chose,  he  might  contribute  his  share  toward  the 
shaping  of  such  a  tale.  He  must  not  alter  it  too  much, 
although  he  could  hardly  help  introducing  some  slight 
variations  of  his  own.  But  these  variations  must  be 
such  as  to  be  accepted  by  his  hearers,  and  even  when 
the  poet  by  profession  gave  a  tale  the  final  touches  and 
the  better-rounded  form  in  which  it  may  have  ulti- 
mately been  written  down,  there  was  nothing  in  his 
work  which  might  not  be  understood  and  welcomed  by 
everybody.  This  was  the  condition  of  affairs  which 
brought  'Beowulf  into  being,  the  'Song  of  Roland'  also, 
and  in  a  far  earlier  time  the  Homeric  poems.  Such 
poetry  represents,  despite  certain  modernizations,  the 


18  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

collective  taste  of  the  people  as  a  whole,  in  a  society 
thoroughly  democratic  in  spirit.  The  poet  himself,  it 
will  be  observed,  though  he  may  have  been  admired 
as  having  a  good  voice  and  delivery,  was  not  the 
inventor  of  the  incidents,  and  he  did  not  get  his  re- 
nown for  treating  such  incidents  in  an  individual  or 
novel  way.  Men  knew  the  tale,  and  wished  it  told 
as  they  knew  it.  They  did  not  care  about  the  poet's 
feelings;  what  they  desired  was  the  story  itself. 

After  the  feudal  system  was  well  established  in  Europe, 
when  men  felt  themselves  separated  into  more  dis- 
tinctly marked  divisions,  poets  came  to  speak  rather  for 
a  particular  class  than  for  the  people  as  a  whole.  The 
century  of  the  Norman  Conquest  marks  a  great  change 
in  this  respect,  not  only  in  England,  but  all  over  Western 
Europe.  The  same  story  might  please  the  lord  in  the 
hall,  or  his  dependents,  but  it  soon  took  on  a  different 
coloring  as  it  was  meant  to  appeal  to  the  one  class  or  the 
other.  If  the  incidents  were  alike,  the  manner  of  telling 
them  was  different.  But  the  poet,  even  when  address- 
ing the  aristocracy,  was  frequently  but  little  more  con- 
cerned to  emphasize  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings  than 
his  brother  of  some  centuries  back  had  been,  —  he  was 
anxious  only  that  men  should  think  that  he  was  telling 
his  tale  aright,  as  it  had  been  handed  down  by  the 
earlier  masters  of  his  craft.  Generally  speaking,  he 
cared  little  to  have  his  name  remembered.  What  he 
was  especially  likely  to  emphasize  was  his  source,  as 
a  proof  of  the  veracity  of  his  statements  —  however 
colored  by  imagination  these  might  be.  Sometimes  he 
referred  to  historical  documents  as  his  authority.  Thus 
one  Old  French  poem,  'The  Song  of  the  Saxons/  begins, 


INTRODUCTION  19 

Whoever  has  the  time  and  the  desire  to  listen  to  my  words  and 
to  remember  them,  let  him  be  quiet,  and  he  will  learn  a  brave  and 
noble  song,  for  which  books  of  history  are  witness  and  guarantee. 

This  medieval  tradition  of  anonymity  was  not,  of 
course,  universal.  Various  authors  might  be  cited 
who  were  desirous  of  securing  personal  approbation 
through  the  individuality  of  their  tales,  and  whose 
chief  interest  lay  in  reshaping  the  story  rather  than 
in  retelling  it  as  they  found  it.  We  feel  in  the 
strongest  way  the  personality  of  such  men  as  Dante, 
Boccaccio,  Chretien  de  Troyes,  Wolfram  von  Eschen- 
bach.  And  Marie  de  France,  the  gifted  lady  who 
has  left  us  such  charming  versions  of  the  Breton  lays, 
has  told  us  her  name,  in  order  that,  as  she  quaintly 
says,  "it  may  be  remembered."  But  these  are  the  ex- 
ceptions which  prove  the  rule ;  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
makers  of  medieval  narrative  aimed  to  be  thought  the 
mouthpieces  of  tradition.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind 
that  we  are  here  discussing  only  story-telling,  and  that 
such  a  type  as  the  lyric,  which  by  its  very  nature  is  sub- 
jective, lies  outside  our  province. 

Naturally,  as  we  approach  modern  times,  the  author 
becomes  more  important,  and  as  artistry  of  a  conscious 
sort  develops,  the  individual  note  becomes  increasingly 
prominent.  The  poet  begins  to  desire  recognition  for 
his  work  as  well  as  for  his  skill  as  a  performer ;  he  wishes 
to  have  men  observe  his  inventiveness  or  his  character- 
drawing  or  the  advance  which  he  has  made  in  some  other 
way  over  known  masters  of  authority.  But  not  until 
the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages,  close  to  the  time  of  the  in- 
vention of  printing,  did  the  majority  of  writers  have  the 
courage  to  avow  this,  or  did  their  work  become  rather 


20  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  expression  of  their  own  personality  than  of  the 
feelings  61  the  audience  for  which  they  were  working. 
This  is  true  of  only  one  of  the  poets  here  considered, 
the  author  of  the  '  Canterbury  Tales/  who  even  appears 
in  his  own  person,  and,  though  he  lets  his  characters 
speak  for  themselves,  tells  us  plainly  enough  what 
he  thinks  about  them.  But  even  Chaucer  depended 
often  upon  a  show  of  sources  as  authorities,  without 
troubling  himself  unduly  about  accuracy.  Indeed, 
he  seems  on  occasion  to  have  put  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek,  and  slyly  set  down  some  sources  which  never 
existed ! 

How  different  the  general  attitude  of  the  modern 
story-teller!  Individuality,  the  creation  of  something 
distinctive  and  original,  —  this  is  his  chief  aim.  He 
writes  to  impress  his  own  convictions  or  feelings  upon  his 
audience,  not  to  reflect  for  them  their  own.  He  is  the 
last  man  to  tell  you  he  is  imitating  some  one  who  has 
gone  before  him,  or  to  assure  you  that  he  is  telling  things 
as  he  found  them  set  down.  Unless  he  can  make  such 
things  different,  he  does  not  care  to  write  of  them,  and 
it  is  most  evident  that  he  wishes  you  to  perceive  these 
excellent  differences.  So  it  comes  about  that  much 
modern  narrative  poetry  is  written  chiefly  to  give  the 
poet  a  chance  to  reveal  himself,  or  to  bring  a  personal 
message,  or  to  point  a  moral,  or  to  dress  up  an  old  tale 
in  such  a  way  that  it  seems  new  because  of  its  setting 
or  its  treatment.  Think  of  Tennyson  and  the  '  Idylls 
of  the  King/  with  their  Victorian  morality  so  strangely 
plastered  over  them,  of  Byron's  long  poems,  which  dis- 
play his  own  figure  on  every  page,  of  Wordsworth's 
narrative  verse,  saturated  with  "my  granddaddy's " 


INTRODUCTION  21 

philosophy,  or  of  Swinburne's  work,  in  which  the  story 
is  almost  hidden  under  superb  and  sensuous  imagery. 
Scott  had  far  more  the  medieval  attitude  than  any  of 
these  men,  for  his  long  narrative  poems  make  their  effect 
primarily  as  good  stories,  simply  and  directly  told, 
with  little  of  the  personal  element  intruding. 

Thus  the  reflection  of  any  great  social  movement  is 
far  more  impersonal  in  medieval  than  in  modern  litera- 
ture. It  may  be  equally  vivid  in  each,  but  the  issue  in 
modern  times  is  likely  to  be  deeply  colored  by  the  poet's 
own  personal  convictions  and  prejudices.  An  illustra- 
tion will  make  this  still  clearer.  The  Crusades  stirred 
Europe  to  the  depths,  but  the  reflection  of  this  religious 
exaltation  in  narrative  poetry  was  far  more  a  reflection  of 
the  times  in  general  than  of  the  feelings  of  individuals. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  influence  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion upon  contemporary  imaginative  literature  merely 
indicates  how  that  great  struggle  reacted  upon  men  of 
different  temperaments.  Consider  the  English  poets, 
for  example.  Wordsworth  and  Byron  and  Shelley  and 
Coleridge  were  all  profoundly  affected  by  the  Revolu- 
tion, but  they  uttered  rather  their  own  convictions  than 
those  of  the  English  people  as  a  whole.  Though  they 
may  have  thought  themselves  voicing  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  they  were  really  quite  as  much  proclaiming  their 
own  views.  No  one  of  them  was  as  impersonal  in  his 
utterances  as  was  his  brother  of  centuries  before. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  a  modern  poet  succeeds 
completely  in  expressing  the  feelings  of  a  great  ma- 
jority of  the  people  on  some  social  question,  and  utters 
these  sentiments  not  so  much  for  himself  alone  as 
for  all  his  countrymen.  His  work  thus  becomes  truly 


22  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

universal.  Perhaps  the  one  man  who  has  come  nearest 
to  striking  the  note  of  national  idealism  to-day  is  Rud- 
yard  Kipling.  He  has  for  years  been  the  real  laureate 
of  the  British  Empire,  and  his  poetry  has  appealed  to 
almost  every  class  of  readers  in  the  United  States.  He 
is  "  popular  "  in  the  best  sense,  because  his  verse  strikes 
a  responsive  chord  in  all  hearts.  His  'Recessional7 
owed  its  extraordinary  vogue,  not  so  much  to  its  ma- 
jestic rhythm  and  to  its  verbal  felicity,  as  to  the  univer- 
sal feeling  it  expressed,  the  same  feeling  which  prompts 
reform  in  the  United  States  to-day,  —  the  danger  of 
losing  our  souls  in  the  quest  for  material  things.  It 
made  a  most  profound  appeal  to  that  public  conscience 
which  we  have  agreed  is  characteristic  of  the  English- 
speaking  people. 

God  of  our  fathers,  known  of  old, 

Lord  of  our  far-flung  battle  line, 
Beneath  whose  awful  Hand  we  hold 

Dominion  over  palm  and  pine  — 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

The  tumult  and  the  shouting  dies  ; 

The  captains  and  the  kings  depart: 
Still  stands  Thine  ancient  sacrifice, 

An  humble  and  a  contrite  heart. 
Lord  God  of  Hosts,  be  with  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 

Far-called,  our  navies  melt  away ; 

On  dune  and  headland  sinks  the  fire  : 
Lo,  all  our  pomp  of  yesterday 

Is  one  with  Nineveh  and  Tyre  ! 
Judge  of  the  Nations,  spare  us  yet, 
Lest  we  forget  —  lest  we  forget ! 


INTRODUCTION  23 

In  this  lyric,  with  its  complete  freedom  from  the  per- 
sonal note,  and  its  expression  of  a  universal  sentiment, 
Kipling  comes  very  close  to  the  manner  of  medieval 
literature.  But  he  can  be,  in  the  next  breath,  intensely 
subjective,  even  while  professing  to  phrase  in  verse  the 
characteristic  qualities  of  a  great  people.  In  one  of  his 
less-known  poems,  'An  American/  he  essays  to  de- 
scribe our  national  type. 

Calm-eyed  he  scoffs  at  sword  and  crown, 

Or  panic-blinded,  stabs  and  slays  : 
Blatant  he  bids  the  world  bow  down, 

Or  cringing  begs  a  crust  of  praise  ; 

Or,  somber-drunk,  at  mine  and  mart, 

He  dubs  his  dreary  brethren  Kings. 
His  hands  are  black  with  blood:  his  heart 

Leaps,  as  a  babe's,  at  little  things. 
****** 

Enslaved,  illogical,  elate, 

He  greets  th'  embarrassed  Gods,  nor  fears 
To  shake  the  iron  hand  of  Fate 

Or  match  with  Destiny  for  beers. 

We  all  know  that  this  is  unfair,  and  that  there  is 
more  than  half  a  chance  that  Kipling  would  himself  now 
acknowledge  it  to  be  so.  It  is  almost  a  pity  to  quote 
it ;  the  lapses  of  poets  are  generally  better  passed  over 
in  silence.  But  it  illustrates  well  enough  the  intrusion 
of  the  personal  element  into  the  work  of  a  poet  who  can, 
on  occasion,  speak  for  a  whole  race. 

In  these  days  of  much  scribbling,  when  we  are  so 
overwhelmed  with  books  on  every  side,  it  is  difficult 
to  put  ourselves  into  the  right  frame  of  mind  to  appre- 
ciate stories  which  did  not  spring  from  the  desire  of 


24  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

some  author  to  be  famous,  or  to  make  money,  or  to  air 
his  own  convictions  about  life  and  art,  but  which  arose 
from  the  hearts  of  the  people  themselves,  which  were 
told  because  they  were  interesting,  and  because  by  their 
example  brave  men  and  their  children  might  be  in- 
spired to  noble  deeds.  A  "bold  sincerity/'  to  quote 
a  phrase  from  Edmund  Gosse,  is  the  striking  thing 
about  all  of  them,  —  a  novel  quality  for  a  public  ac- 
customed to  the  "six  best  sellers "  !  It  is  hard  for  us 
nowadays  to  escape  from  the  tyranny  of  print ;  we  are 
far  indeed  from  the  time  when  men  got  their  tales  by 
listening  to  them  instead  of  reading  them  "printed  an' 
bound  in  little  books."  To  appreciate  these  properly, 
we  must  divest  ourselves,  so  far  as  possible,  of  modern 
sophistication.  Men  of  the  Middle  Ages  were,  in  a 
sense,  grown-up  children,  fond  of  a  good  story,  not  caring 
whence  it  came  provided  it  were  vouched  for  as  an  ap- 
proved success,  believing  it  religiously,  with  all  its 
dragons  and  fairies,  and  resenting,  just  as  children  do 
to-day,  any  radical  changes.  Modern  children  are,  in- 
deed, the  direct  inheritors  of  these  old  tales.  Many  a 
boy  can  tell  about  Robin  Hood  as  well  as  about  Robin- 
son Crusoe,  and  in  his  fairy-books  he  makes  the  ac- 
quaintance of  old  heroic  stories  of  the  past  in  lowlier 
estate.  The  legend  of  Brunhild  and  Sigurd  or  Siegfried, 
made  familiar  by  Wagner  in  his  'Ring  of  the  Nibelun- 
gen'  music-dramas,  is  really  the  same  story  as  'The 
Sleeping  Beauty  in  the  Wood/  only  with  such  differ- 
ences as  that  in  the  fairy-tale  the  prince  penetrates  a 
hedge  of  sharp  thorns  instead  of  a  wall  of  fire,  and 
makes  his  way  into  a  castle,  instead  of  scaling  a  rocky 
height.  If  we  would  really  understand  these  old  tales, 


INTRODUCTION  25 

then,  we  must  bring  to  them  something  of  the  sim- 
plicity in  the  heart  of  a  child.  Otherwise  the  magic 
will  lose  its  potency,  the  valor  of  the  knights  will  not 
stir  our  pulses,  the  beautiful  maidens  will  seem  lay- 
figures,  and  the  giants  and  dragons  clumsy  inventions. 
It  is  not  the  marvels,  however,  but  the  human  qual- 
ity of  these  tales  which  I  would  emphasize,  the  many 
touches  of  nature  which  make  that  world  akin  to  ours. 
"Humanity,"  says  Rene  Doumic,  "is  ever  the  same. 
Society  is  ever  different. "  This  is  the  whole  point  of 
the  lectures  to  follow,  —  to  see  how  the  aspirations 
common  to  people  in  all  ages  manifested  themselves 
among  our  own  ancestors  ten  centuries  and  more  ago, 
to  see  how  much  valor  and  love  and  patriotism  and 
ambition  and  avarice  meant  to  them,  and  what  they 
thought  about  their  own  social  relations  to  their  fellow- 
men.  A  study  of  these  old  stories  is  no  antiquarian 
pastime,  no  rummaging  among  dust,  no  quest  for  stiff 
and  soulless  figures.  It  is  the  opening  of  the  door  upon 
a  life  as  exuberant  as  our  own,  full  of  richness  and  color, 
stirred  by  adventure  and  by  passion,  with  the  sun  shin- 
ing bright  in  the  heavens,  and  the  joy  of  life  strong  in 
the  hearts  of  men.  The  phrase  "medieval"  sometimes 
carries  with  it  certain  false  notions,  due  largely  to  the 
ignorance  of  our  grandfathers,  who  knew  little  about 
the  period  intervening  between  ancient  and  modern 
times,  and  brushed  it  aside  as  unworthy  of  attention, 
seeing  in  it  only  the  ruin  of  the  serener  civilization  of 
classical  antiquity  and  the  supremacy  of  a  ruder  people 
in  Europe.  They  did  not  realize  that  this  ruder  people 
were  far  more  virile,  and  that  they  developed,  in  the 
ten  centuries  from  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  to 


26  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  Discovery  of  America,  a  more  vigorous  civilization 
than  the  one  they  had  supplanted.  They  did  not  realize, 
either,  that  in  this  period,  which  we  call  the  Middle 
Ages,  are  to  be  sought,  to  a  large  extent,  the  founda- 
tions of  the  great  social  and  political  institutions  of 
modern  times,  that  so  far  from  being  an  era  of 
universal  decay,  it  was  then  that  the  seeds  of  a  new 
spring  were  germinating,  which  have  since  burst  into 
the  full  flower  of  a  glorious  summer.  So  th^se^  tales  of 
long  ago  will,  if  we  take  them  aright,  bring  a  message 
to  our  own  times  from  the  age  which  produced  them. 
The  idealism  which  we  may  believe  we  see  manifesting 
itself  in  our  national  life  to-day  may  be  only  a  modern 
version  of  the  idealism  of  our  ancestors,  as  they  have 
recorded  it  for  us  in  the  words  and  deeds  of  their  great 
heroes.  The  achievements  of  our  present-day  democ- 
racy may  be  only  a  reapplication  to  modern  times  of 
the  best  social  impulses  of  the  English-speaking  people, 
in  the  days  when  they  were  still  in  the  process  of  fusion 
into  a  single  nation. 


II 

BEOWULF 


The  man  who  slew  the  dragon-brood 

A  thousand  years  ago, 
Is  brother  still  to  him  who  will 

Prevail  against  his  foe. 

The  Saxon  blood  still  warms  at  flood 

The  veins  of  living  men, 
And  Celt  and  Gaul  are  still  at  call 

To  give  the  strength  of  ten. 

A  thousand  leagues  across  the  seas 
There  comes  their  far-sent  cry, 

"We  gave  you  life,  in  sweat  and  strife ; 
Be  men,  ere  yet  ye  die  ! " 


II 

BEOWULF 

THE  English-speaking  peoples  have  always  taken 
particular  pride  in  being  considered  intensely  patriotic. 
Both  British  and  Americans  have  manifested,  even  in 
the  midst  of  grave  national  crises,  a  sturdy  loyalty  to 
their  own  country,  a  determination  to  stand  by  it 
through  thick  and  thin,  to  silence  its  detractors,  and  to 
punish  its  enemies.  They  have  indeed  often  carried 
their  enthusiasm  too  far.  In  proclaiming  the  superiority 
of  their  native  land  over  all  others  on  the  globe,  they 
have  now  and  again  irritated  their  neighbors,  so  that 
the  jingoism  of  John  Bull  and  the  self-sufficiency  of 
Uncle  Sam  have  become  proverbial.  This  is  no  new 
development  of  English  character  during  the  past  few 
centuries ;  English  literature  is  full  of  patriotic  pride 
in  the  great  events  of  national  history,  and  of  visions 
of  glories  to  come  in  the  future.  Shakspere,  to  cite 
only  one  magnificent  example,  well  illustrates  both  the 
devotion  and  the  bluster  of  the  English  temper.  His 
play  of  '  Henry  the  Fifth '  is  a  full-throated  glorification 
of  English  valor  and  virtue,  —  the  spirit  of  Agincourt 
quickened  by  the  political  successes  of  the  reign  of 
Queen  Elizabeth.  But  he  is  unfair  to  the  French; 
they  were  brave  warriors,  yet  he  represents  them  as 

29 


30  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

cowards ;  they  had  much  justice  on  their  side,  but  he 
sets  forth  the  English  cause  as  altogether  right  and 
holy.  The  whole  play  is  designed  to  exhibit  the  great- 
ness of  England,  —  a  "  little  body  with  a  mighty 
heart. "  This  intensity  of  patriotism,  which  concedes 
nothing  to  others  and  arrogates  everything  to  itself, 
is,  it  must  be  acknowledged,  fairly  typical  of  English 
character. 

It  is  very  surprising,  then,  in  turning  to  the  oldest 
English  epic,  to  find  that  there  is  nothing  patriotic 
about  it  at  all.  We  call  it  an  English  poem,  and  rightly. 
It  was  written  on  English  soil,  for  Englishmen,  and  in 
the  English  tongue.  It  was  known  in  various  parts  of 
the  country,  as  is  shown  by  the  traces  of  different 
dialects  in  which  it  was  successively  told.  In  temper 
and  spirit  it  is  thoroughly  in  accord  with  all  we  can 
learn  about  our  Anglo-Saxon  ancestors  during  the  two 
or  three  centuries  following  their  invasion  of  Britain. 
We  know,  too,  that  it  had  been  in  their  possession  for 
some  time  before  it  assumed  its  present  shape ;  that  it 
was  not  a  mere  translation  from  another  tongue.  Yet 
the  epic  deals  neither  with  English  people  nor  with 
English  heroes.  Some  of  the  tribes  which  had  settled  in 
Britain  are  mentioned,  but  in  an  altogether  unimpor- 
tant way.  The  peoples  whom  it  celebrates  are  foreign- 
ers, Scandinavians.  The  home  of  the  hero  is  apparently 
in  the  Scandinavian  peninsula,  although  we  cannot  be 
sure,  and  the  scene  of  the  poem  is  laid  partly  in  that 
land  of  gloomy  fjords  and  long,  dark  winters,  and  partly 
in  Denmark.  The  Danish  people  are  very  prominent ; 
the  poem  opens  with  a  glorification  of  their  power,  and 
loses  no  opportunity  to  sing  their  praises.  This  race 


BEOWULF  31 

was  in  later  times  actively  hostile  to  the  English ;  we 
all  remember  how  the  Vikings,  those  savage  sea-robbers, 
swept  down  on  the  coast  of  Britain,  pillaging  and  burn- 
ing, until  they  were  finally  strong  enough  to  seize  the 
very  government  of  the  country,  and  to  place  a  Danish 
king  on  the  English  throne.  It  was  resistance  to  these 
Scandinavian  invaders  which  developed  much  of  the 
national  spirit  that  arose  in  the  reign  of  King  Alfred, 
yet  even  then  this  epic,  which  exalted  England's  ene- 
mies, continued  to  be  popular.  The  unique  manuscript 
in  which  the  poem  is  preserved  dates  from  the  tenth 
century,  when  struggles  between  the  Danes  and  the 
Anglo-Saxons  were  constant  and  bitter.  In  short, 
'  Beowulf '  is  a  story  dealing  with  foreign  subject-matter, 
borrowed  from  an  alien  and  even  hostile  people,  with  no 
trace  of  English  patriotism  about  it.  How  is  this 
strange  situation  to  be  explained? 

The  answer  is  simple.  At  the  time  when  '  Beowulf ' 
was  composed  in  the  form  in  which  we  now  have  it, 
the  English  were  unable  to  produce  any  truly  national 
literature  because  they  had  as  yet  developed  no  politi- 
cal solidarity.  They  had  not  yet  come  to  think  of 
themselves  as  a  single  people,  united  by  common  in- 
terests and  ideals ;  they  were  still  in  an  unsettled  con- 
dition, governed  by  various  petty  kings,  and  continually 
warring  against  each  other.  They  were  all  so  much 
occupied  by  these  internal  contests  that  they  had  little 
opportunity  to  feel  the  ties  of  blood  or  of  governmental 
organization.  These  conditions  are  reflected  in  their 
poetry;  patriotic  literature  can  hardly  develop  in  a 
constantly  divided  state.  True  national  unity  was 
rare  in  Europe  in  those  days;  the  English  were  not 


32  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

alone  in  this  respect.  The  Continent  was  still  most 
unsettled,  —  the  various  peoples  were  wandering  rest- 
lessly about,  constantly  forsaking  their  old  homes  and 
seeking  new  habitations.  Even  when  stationary  for  a 
time,  they  led  a  troubled  existence,  in  which  defense  of 
their  own  possessions  was  varied  chiefly  by  efforts  to 
seize  the  possessions  of  others.  Fighting  was  the  main 
business  of  life,  the  conquest  of  treasure  and  territory 
its  goal,  and  a  settled  and  peaceful  existence  almost 
unknown.  The  whole  era  in  which  this  epic  grew  up 
is  fitly  called  the  Migration  Period.  Some  few  peoples, 
as  for  example  the  Danes,  were  able  to  develop  further 
toward  what  we  should  call  a  national  consciousness, 
but  they  were  more  fortunate  than  most  of  their  neigh- 
bors. Out  of  all  this  confusion  there  came,  in  the  full- 
ness of  time,  the  beginnings  of  the  orderly  governments 
of  modern  Europe.  The  process  was  slow,  however, 
and  for  the  evolution  of  great  heroic  tales  like  '  Beo- 
wulf '  we  have  to  think  of  an  age  when  the  sentiment 
of  the  people  was  tribal  rather  than  national,  heroic 
rather  than  patriotic. 

The  achievements  of  a  warrior  of  that  day  were  likely 
not  to  be  closely  associated  with  his  native  country. 
The  typical  champion  was  a  wanderer  on  the  face  of 
the  earth,  going  wherever  glory  called  him.  He  was, 
of  course,  devoted  to  his  lord  and  to  his  comrades,  and 
bound  to  defend  them  and  the  hearths  and  homes  of 
his  people  whenever  occasion  arose.  But  if  he  gained 
merely  personal  renown,  if  he  uttered  mighty  boasts 
over  the  evening  ale-cups,  and  afterwards  performed 
heroic  actions,  he  was  accounted  quite  as  admirable 
as  if  he  helped  to  sustain  the  integrity  of  a  larger  politi- 


BEOWULF  33 

cal  organization.  It  was  a  common  thing  for  a  war- 
rior to  seek  service  under  a  foreign  prince,  leaving  his 
own  folk  to  fight  their  battles  alone.  In  a  time  of  con- 
tinual warfare,  such  additions  to  the  military  efficiency 
of  a  tribe  were  sure  to  be  welcome,  and  any  stranger  of 
proved  bravery  was  given  a  cordial  reception.  There 
must  have  been  a  certain  fascination,  too,  in  those  days 
of  restricted  horizons,  about  a  man  who  had  journeyed 
from  afar,  especially  if  he  were  crowned  with  the  glory 
of  successful  achievement.  And  foreign  heroes  who 
came  in  song  and  story  were  as  warmly  welcomed  as 
those  who  came  in  the  flesh.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  the  most  popular  figures  of  heroic  story  were 
those  adopted  from  foreign  peoples.  The  Scandina- 
vians celebrated  Sigurd  or  Siegfried,  for  example, 
though  he  was  a  German  hero,  closely  associated  with 
the  river  Rhine.  From  these  Scandinavian  sources 
Richard  Wagner  took,  in  the  main,  the  material  for 
his  great  '  Rheingold '  tetralogy,  because  he  found  them 
more  deeply  poetic  than  the  German  versions.  Both 
Scandinavians  and  Germans  in  the  old  days  sang  of 
the  exploits  of  Dietrich  of  Bern,  who  was  Theodoric, 
king  of  the  Goths.  People  were  generally  more  inter- 
ested in  a  hero  fighting  for  his  own  glory  than  in  a 
hero  battling  for  his  own  country.  They  wanted  to 
hear  of  his  deeds ;  it  did  not  greatly  matter  whether 
these  were  patriotic  or  not. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  the  popularity  of  heroes  from 
foreign  lands  continued  even  into  the  time  when  a  truly 
national  spirit  had  developed  among  the  peoples  of 
Western  Europe.  If  a  champion  had  gained  great 
renown  among  his  own  people  through  patriotic  defense 


34  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

of  his  country  against  its  enemies,  his  brilliant  exploits 
were  sufficient  to  insure  his  fame,  not  only  at  home,  but 
abroad  as  well.  We  shall  see,  in  a  later  lecture,  how  the 
valor  of  Roland,  who  died  for  France  in  the  passes  of 
the  Pyrenees,  was  celebrated  all  over  Europe.  And  the 
French  people  themselves,  despite  these  native  tradi- 
tions, were  greatly  interested  in  heroes  from  other 
peoples.  Along  with  such  stories  as  those  centering 
about  Charlemagne  and  his  knights,  they  adopted  those 
of  the  British  hero  Arthur,  raising  him  to  an  eminence 
which  he  had  never  gained  among  men  of  his  own  race, 
and  finally  making  him  a  more  splendid  and  imposing 
figure  than  Charlemagne  himself. 

All  this  explains  why  it  was  easy  for  the  Anglo-Saxons 
to  adopt  the  foreign  hero  Beowulf.  The  main  theme 
of  the  story,  it  will  be  noted,  is  the  valor  of  one  man,  a 
man  fighting,  in  the  main,  not  for  his  country,  but  for 
his  own  renown.  There  is  much  high-sounding  praise 
of  the  Danes  and  of  the  Geats,  but  the  real  interest 
centers  in  neither  people,  but  in  the  champion  who  en- 
gages in  desperate  fights  against  demons  and  dragons. 
The  note  which  is  struck  at  the  beginning  of  the  poem 

Lo,  we  have  heard  of  the  glory  of  the  Spear-Danes  ! 

must  not  mislead  us,  for  it  becomes  evident  when  we 
turn  to  the  story  itself  that  this  enthusiasm  for  the 
Danish  people  is  only  incidental.  The  Danes  are  ruled 
by  a  great  king  named  Hrothgar,  successful  in  war  and 
wise  in  peace.  As  a  symbol  of  his  power  and  glory  he 
builds  a  great  hall  in  which  his  warriors  may  feast 
through  the  long  winter  nights,  and  in  which  he  himself 
may  sit  in  state,  presiding  over  their  revels,  and  dispens- 


BEOWULF  35 

ing  treasure.  But  a  great  misfortune  befalls  him  and 
his  people.  A  demon  called  Grendel,  half  demon,  half 
like  a  gigantic  bear  in  shape,  angered  at  the  revelry 
in  the  hall,  comes  creeping  from  his  lair  in  a  haunted 
pool  in  the  forest,  stealthily  advancing  through  the 
low-hanging  mists  of  the  evening,  and  attacks  the  war- 
riors as  they  lie  asleep  after  their  feasting.  Night 
after  night  he  comes,  until  no  one  dares  sleep  in  the 
hall,  and  "the  best  of  buildings "  stands  empty  and 
useless.  He  devours  his  victims,  crushing  their  bones 
and  drinking  their  blood.  Often  some  Danish  warrior 
plans  vengeance,  vowing  over  the  wine-cups  that  he  will 
abide  the  coming  of  the  demon  in  the  hall,  and  slay 
him.  But  when  morning  breaks,  the  benches  are  all  be- 
spattered with  blood,  and  the  daring  warrior  is  missing. 
Twelve  long  winters  this  continues;  the  pride  of  the 
great  king  is  turned  into  sorrow,  and  his  counselors 
can  devise  no  means  of  redress  from  the  foe.  Then 
Beowulf,  a  stranger  from  the  land  of  the  Geats,  in  the 
north,  comes  to  the  aid  of  the  suffering  Danish  people, 
meets  the  monster  in  the  haunted  hall,  wounds  him  to 
the  death  by  tearing  off  his  arm,  and  afterwards  pur- 
sues his  ogress-mother,  who  comes  to  avenge  her  son, 
into  the  depths  of  her  lair  in  the  fens,  and  kills  her. 

In  spite  of  all  the  glowing  rhetoric  about  the  glory 
of  the  Spear-Danes,  then,  they  have  to  be  helped  out  of 
a  tight  place  because  they  have  no  champion  valiant 
enough  at  home.  Surely  this  is  not  the  best  of  ways 
to  exalt  them  !  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  poet,  in  such  a 
line  as  that  just  quoted,  merely  desires  to  assure  his 
hearers  that  they  are  to  be  told  of  the  fortunes  of  a 
noble  race.  The  people  of  Beowulf  are  duly  celebrated, 


36  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

which  enhances  his  glory  as  their  king,  but  the  poem 
is  no  expression  of  the  patriotism  of  the  Geats.  Such 
poetry  as  this  disdains  characters  who  are  not  exalted ; 
it  gains  double  impressiveness  by  narrating  the  ex- 
periences of  mighty  peoples.  It  deals  with  the  heroic 
deeds  of  heroic  men,  —  who  these  men  are  does  not 
greatly  matter,  but  they  should  not  come  of  inferior 
stock.  The  poet  is  interested  in  contemporary  history, 
but  with  as  impartial  a  point  of  view  as  a  New  York 
newspaper  discussing  European  politics.  The  various 
nations  which  are  mentioned  from  time  to  time  are 
never  belittled ;  the  spirit  of  the  whole  poem  is  much 
like  that  of  the  Iliad,  in  which  enthusiasm  for  the  Greeks 
does  not  prevent  an  equal  sympathy  for  the  Trojans. 
The  heroic  epic  is  almost  always  sportsmanlike;  it 
delights  in  a  fair  fight  between  well-matched  adversaries, 
and  recognizes  that  the  more  valiant  the  adversary, 
the  greater  is  the  glory  of  the  hero. 

The  epic  of  ' Beowulf '  really  consists  of  two  elements; 
first,  old  tales  about  champions  who  killed  supernatural 
creatures  hostile  to  mankind,  and  second,  Germanic 
history  and  legend,  which  serves  as  a  background.  In 
the  course  of  time,  fairy-tales  and  history  have  become 
so  fused  as  to  appear  like  one ;  the  old  stories  have  been 
applied  to  a  Germanic  hero  and  placed  in  a  realistic 
setting.  Men  in  Scandinavian  lands  on  the  Continent 
sang  of  the  exploits  of  this  hero  in  short  lays,  or  epic 
songs,  which  were  later  brought  to  England  by  min- 
strels, and  there  molded  into  epic  form.  The  present 
shape  of  the  poem  is  probably  due  largely  to  one  man, 
about  two  hundred  years  before  the  death  of  King  Al- 
fred. Grateful  as  we  must  be  for  his  work,  we  must 


BEOWULF  37 

not  forget  that  he  is  only  in  a  small  degree  the  author. 
The  real  name  of  the  author,  as  Gilbert  Murray  says 
of  the  Greek  epic,  is  Legion,  —  the  many  men  who 
sang  of  these  deeds  before  there  was  any  developed 
epic  at  all.  In  some  such  way  as  this  we  may  conceive 
the  present  poem  to  have  taken  shape.  Let  us  now 
look  more  closely  at  each  of  the  two  main  elements, 
fairy-tale  and  history,  which  have  gone  to  the  making 
of  the  whole. 

The  three  great  contests  with  supernatural  beings, 
—  Grendel,  his  mother,  and  the  fiery  dragon,  —  en- 
gage the  chief  interest  in  the  poem;  everything  else 
is  merely  secondary.  And  what  good  stories  they  are  ! 
How  impressive  is  the  picture  of  Beowulf,  keeping 
watch  alone  in  the  haunted  hall,  waiting  for  the  coming 
of  the  monster  Grendel,  who  presently  approaches, 
plucks  open  the  door  of  the  hall,  and  glares  ferociously 
into  the  darkness  within  !  Out  of  his  eyes  starts  a 
loathsome  light,  like  a  lambent  flame.  Quickly  he 
seizes  one  of  the  sleeping  warriors,  and  tears  him  to 
pieces,  swallowing  him  alive  in  great  mouthfuls,  and 
exulting  in  his  horrid  feast.  But  on  a  sudden  Beowulf 
stands  up,  and  grapples  with  him.  No  weapon  is  used ; 
the  prodigious  strength  of  the  hero  is  pitted  against 
the  supernatural  power  of  the  demon.  Fiercely  they 
struggle,  the  great  hall  reechoes,  the  benches  are  over- 
turned, —  it  is  a  contest  such  as  men  have  never  seen. 
At  last  Grendel  realizes  that  he  has  met  his  match,  and 
strives  to  escape,  but  not  until  Beowulf  has  torn  off 
his  arm  at  the  shoulder  is  he  able  to  flee  to  his  lair, 
wounded  unto  death.  As  morning  breaks  there  is  great 
rejoicing,  the  hall  is  magnificently  adorned,  and  a  great 


38  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

feast  is  held.  Rich  gifts  are  bestowed  on  the  hero, 
and  many  men  come  to  look  at  the  gigantic  arm  and 
shoulder  of  the  demon,  which  are  hung  up  as  a  trophy. 
But  all  rejoicing  is  turned  into  grief  on  the  ensuing 
night,  when  the  mother  of  Grendel,  a  ferocious  she- 
demon,  and  only  less  terrible  than  her  son  as  a  woman 
is  less  powerful  than  a  man,  breaks  into  the  hall,  and 
in  the  absence  of  the  hero,  carries  off  a  valiant  Danish 
warrior  to  her  haunt  in  the  forest  lake.  Beowulf 
straightway  resolves  to  search  out  this  abode,  which 
King  Hrothgar  describes  in  graphic  words  :  — 

They  dwell  in  a  region  unvisited  by  men,  wolf-cliffs  and  windy 
headlands  and  dangerous  pathways  through  the  fens,  where  the 
water-fall 1  descendeth,  shrouded  in  the  mists  of  the  heights,  a  flood 
under  the  overhanging  rocks.  It  is  not  far  hence  in  measure  of  miles 
that  the  mere  lieth.  Over  it  hang  trees  covered  with  hoar-frost,  with 
roots  firm  fixed  they  overshadow  the  waters.  There  at  night  may  a 
ghostly  wonder  be  seen,  —  a  fire  on  the  flood  !  So  wise  is  none  of  the 
children  of  men  as  to  know  what  lieth  in  those  depths.  Although 
the  heath-rover,  the  stag  with  mighty  horns,  may  seek  out  this 
grove,  driven  thither  from  afar,  he  will  sooner  yield  up  his  life  upon 
the  bank  than  plunge  in  and  hide  his  head  beneath  the  waters.  Un- 
canny is  the  place.  There  the  weltering  of  waters  mounteth  up, 
pale  unto  the  heavens,  when  the  wind  waketh  evil  weathers,  until 
the  air  darkles  and  the  heavens  weep. 

Nothing  daunted,  Beowulf  journeys  to  the  haunted 
mere,  dives  into  its  depths,  slays  the  ogress,  cuts  off 
the  head  of  the  dead  Grendel,  as  a  trophy,  or  to  keep 
his  spirit  from  troubling  men,  and  returns  in  triumph 

1  I  have  ventured  to  introduce  a  rendering  of  my  own  for  the  lines 
describing  the  mountain  stream.  This  translation  seems  to  me 
at  once  more  picturesque  and  more  plausible  than  the  usual  inter- 
pretation, and  fully  in  accord  with  Anglo-Saxon  idiom. 


BEOWULF  39 

to  the  hall,  now  forever  delivered  from  its  terrors. 
Richly  laden  with  gifts,  he  sails  back  again  to  his  own 
country  in  the  north,  where  he  ultimately  becomes 
king,  rules  gloriously  for  fifty  years,  and  dies  in  slaying 
a  dragon  which  has  attacked  his  people. 

These  adventures  of  Beowulf  at  the  Danish  court  are, 
it  will  be  observed,  pure  fantasy,  arising  not  from  the 
stern  realities  of  a  nation's  existence,  but  from  universal 
popular  imagination.  It  is  all  indeed  a  fairy-tale,  which 
happens  to  have  been  localized  in  a  definite  country 
and  given  a  historical  background,  but  is  none  the 
less  essentially  imaginary.  This  particular  story  of  a 
man  who  slays  demons  which  menace  a  hall  or  house 
is  very  widespread.  Men  of  many  different  countries 
have  told  it  with  bated  breath,  when  the  raging  weather 
of  a  tempestuous  winter  made  all  nature  seem  alive 
with  uncanny  monsters  unfriendly  to  mankind.  In 
spite  of  the  changes  which  such  a  story  suffers  in  many 
tellings,  we  can  trace  it  all  over  Europe,  and  even  in 
other  continents.  There  is  no  particular  reason, 
apparently,  why  it  should  have  been  localized  in  Den- 
mark ;  every  country  was  in  early  times  troubled  by 
such  spooks  as  Grendel  and  his  dam.  Nowadays  we 
never  see  them;  they  have  all  been  killed  off  by  the 
valor  of  heroes  and  by  the  skepticism  of  an  unbelieving 
age.  But  they  were  very  real  and  dangerous  in  the 
good  old  times,  —  the  natural  foes  to  everything  joyous 
and  winsome,  and  their  ugly  natures  were  stirred  to  the 
depths  by  the  revelry  of  heroes  in  the  night-time.  The 
poet  reflects,  with  a  touch  of  compassion,  that  they  got 
no  pleasure  out  of  life.  These  joyless  incarnations  of 
evil  are  a  most  interesting  manifestation  of  the  popular 


40  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

imagination.  They  have  little  foundation  in  reality; 
they  are  merely  phantoms  of  the  brain,  like  the  mon- 
sters of  classical  times, — the  Minotaur  slain  by  Theseus, 
the  Chimera  destroyed  by  Bellerophon,  or  Medusa, 
whose  snaky  head  was  severed  from  her  body  by  Per- 
seus. It  is  with  such  stories  as  these  that  'Beowulf 
belongs,  —  a  very  different  type  from  such  heroic  ad- 
ventures as  that  of  Horatius  at  the  bridge,  or  of  Leoni- 
das  holding  the  pass  at  Thermopylae.  There  the  pa- 
triotic note  is  the  controlling  element,  and  the  whole 
is  founded  upon  a  historical  fact  or  upon  a  legend  ac- 
cepted as  true;  here  history  has  no  place,  save  as  a 
means  of  making  the  story  seem  real. 

The  fight  with  the  dragon,  the  third  great  adventure 
of  the  poem,  is  another  creation  of  fantasy.  Dragons 
were  an  even  commoner  affliction  than  monsters  such 
as  Grendel.  They  were  a  strange  but  well-accepted 
species  in  natural  history,  no  more  unfamiliar  to  people 
in  those  days  than  the  kangaroo  or  the  hyena  is  to  us. 
It  was  their  nature  to  seek  out  extorted  treasure  in 
the  womb  of  earth,  and  to  guard  it  with  their  glittering 
folds.  From  this  they  derived  no  particular  pleasure ; 
it  was  instinct  which  drove  them  to  do  it.  But  the 
real  reason  why  most  dragons  existed  seems  to  have 
been  to  provide  heroes  with  something  to  kill.  When- 
ever a  dragon  appears  in  .these  old  stories,  a  champion 
can  almost  always  be  discerned  on  the  horizon,  on 
his  way  to  slay  it.  In  our  epic,  the  monster  watches 
over  a  priceless  treasure  in  a  rocky  cavern,  but  he  is 
irritated  by  an  unwelcome  visitor,  and  revenges  him- 
self by  laying  waste  the  country  with  his  fiery  breath. 
So  the  hero  Beowulf,  now  grown  old  and  gray,  seeks 


BEOWULF  41 

him  out  with  a  small  band  of  followers.  The  dragon, 
brooding  over  the  treasure  in  his  lair  under  a  hoary 
rock,  hears  the  clear  voice  of  the  warrior  bidding  him 
come  forth,  and  in  anger  he  writhes  out  of  his  cavern, 
curving  like  a  bow  in  sinuous  folds,  and  spewing  forth 
fire  and  flame.  The  struggle  between  the  dragon  and 
the  old  hero  is  terrible;  the  monster  almost  prevails, 
but  in  Beowulf's  hour  of  need  a  young  warrior  comes 
to  his  assistance.  After  .a  frightful  combat  the  veno- 
mous serpent  is  slain,  but  not  before  Beowulf  has  re- 
ceived a  severe  wound.  The  poison  proves  too  mighty 
for  the  aged  hero  to  resist,  and  so  he  dies,  even  in  the 
hour  of  victory.  His  body  is  burnt  on  a  great  funeral 
pyre,  with  solemn  ceremonial.  The  dead  dragon  is 
flung  from  the  top  of  the  lofty  cliff  into  the  sea  break- 
ing on  the  rocks  beneath. 

The  whole  framework  of  the  story  is  imaginary,  then, 
and  even  absurd.  Such  fairy-tale  incidents  as  these 
seem  indeed  rather  childish  for  the  supporting  structure 
of  a  great  heroic  tale.  But  this  is  not  at  all  the  impres- 
sion which  the  epic  itself  makes.  No  such  thought 
occurs  to  us  when  we  read  it.  The  setting  in  which  the 
whole  is  placed  is  so  realistic,  —  the  courts  and  domains 
of  the  Scandinavian  kings  are  so  graphically  described, 
that  even  the  killing  of  spooks  and  dragons  seems 
realistic  too.  The  constant  references  to  historical 
and  traditional  events,  represented  as  contemporary, 
help  still  more  to  make  the  main  action  seem  plausible. 
Fiction^  may  almost  be  elevated  into  the  realm  of  fact 
if  it  is  mingled  with  veracious  history.  King  Hrothgar, 
who  built  the  great  hall,  is  a  historical  character,  he 
actually  held  his  court  in  Denmark,  as  the  poem  states. 


42  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

Of  Hygelac,  too,  there  are  definite  and  trustworthy 
records  in  history.  He  lost  his  life  in  an  unsuccessful 
expedition  into  the  Low  Countries  in  the  early  sixth 
century,  against  a  combined  army  of  Franks  and 
Frisians.  It  is  easier  to  believe  a  ghost  story  if  the 
ghost  appears  in  the  house  of  a  man  whom  we  know, 
and  when  we  remember  that  there  is  a  certain  amount 
of  sober  fact  in  this  tale  it  becomes  easier  to  accept 
Grendel.  Moreover,  this  setting  adds  dignity  to  the 
action,  it  raises  the  whole  tone  of  the  story  in  such  a 
way  that  whatever  triviality  there  may  be  about  it 
disappears.  Among  such  surroundings  as  those  of 
King  Hrothgar's  court,  it  is  no  longer  a  Jack  the  Giant- 
killer  yarn.  It  is  serious  and  tragic ;  it  has  all  the  dig- 
nity of  epic  poetry. 

Early  literature  is  full  of  such  achievements  as  this, 
full  of  the  transformation  of  fairy-tales  into  narratives 
which  seem  true  through  the  realism  of  their  setting, 
the  dignity  of  their  treatment,  and  the  individualiza- 
tion  of  their  characters.  In  the  lectures  to  follow  we 
shall  see  abundant  illustrations  of  this,  but  modern 
literature  as  well  affords  plenty  of  examples.  Shak- 
spere's  tragedy  of  'King  Lear'  is  built  up  about  an  old 
popular  tale  of  a  king  and  his  three  daughters,  which 
is  still  told  to-day  by  the  peasants  of  Europe,  —  a  tale 
quite  as  trivial  as  the  one  which  underlies  the  first  two 
adventures  of  'Beowulf/  But  so  wonderful  is  the 
delineation  of  character  in  'King  Lear7  that  we  forget 
the  essential  absurdity  of  the  plot.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  'Merchant  of  Venice.'  But  Shakspere  has  placed 
the  story  of  Portia  and  the  caskets  —  another  old  tale 
—  and  the  episode  of  the  bond  exacted  by  Shylock  in 


BEOWULF  43 

so  veracious  a  background  that  the  improbability  of  a 
lady's  choosing  a  husband  by  mere  chance,  or  of  a  man's 
forfeiting  his  life  to  lend  money  for  his  friend's  wooing, 
is  entirely  forgotten.  The  stock  of  plots  in  literature, 
medieval  as  well  as  modern,  is  limited ;  the  transforma- 
tions of  these  plots  in  the  hands  of  succeeding  genera- 
tions are  endless.  Sometimes  we  do  not  recognize  these 
old  motives  when  they  are  applied  to  scenes  with  which 
we  are  ourselves  familiar.  One  of  the  most  popular 
plays  produced  in  New  York  in  recent  years  presented 
in  its  opening  scene  the  interior  of  a  flat  in  Harlem, 
but  the  plot  was  a  modification  of  that  used  by  Shak- 
spere  in  ' Measure  for  Measure.'  As  a  plot,  it  was  not 
new  in  Shakspere's  play;  he  borrowed  it  from  a  con- 
temporary drama,  which  in  its  turn  was  based  upon  a 
short  story  in  Italian.  The  same  situation  has  been 
used  by  modern  dramatists,  now  in  a  Japanese  setting, 
and  again  thrown  against  the  vivid  background  of  life 
in  Italy  a  hundred  years  ago.  So  the  men  who  took 
this  old  tale  about  the  slaying  of  monsters  and  gave  it 
to  a  Scandinavian  hero  were  merely  doing  what  has  been 
done  in  all  ages,  —  they  were  bringing  a  good  story 
up  to  date. 

The  danger  in  such  a  proceeding  as  this  is  that  the 
story  may  not  quite  fit  into  its  setting,  that  the  hero 
or  the  heroine  may  not  act  quite  naturally  in  new  sur- 
roundings. So  when  this  fairy-tale  champion,  the 
slayer  of  dragons  and  monsters,  is  set  down  in  the  midst 
of  a  very  different  society  from  that  to  which  he  has 
been  accustomed,  he  sometimes  shows  traces  of  his 
earlier  character.  He  is  made  a  king,  but  he  is  only 
a  king  for  the  purposes  of  the  story,  because  a  hero  as 


44  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

great  as  he  ought  to  have  that  dignity.  He  is  hardly 
as  real  a  monarch  as  the  lesser  rulers  of  neighboring 
states ;  the  poem  has  little  to  say  of  the  political  events 
of  his  long  reign  of  fifty  years,  while  it  is  full  of  the 
events  in  other  nations.  Almost  all  the  poem  says  about 
his  reign  is,  "Then  unto  Beowulf  did  the  broad  king- 
dom fall,  and  well  did  he  rule  it  for  fifty  winters.  He 
was  a  wise  king,  the  aged  guardian  of  the  land.  And 
so  time  passed,  until  a  dragon  began  to  reveal  his  power 
in  the  darkness  of  the  night, " —  and  with  the  dragon 
we  get  once  more  into  the  realm  of  fantasy.  When  he 
slays  this  monster,  the  poem  represents  his  act,  in  the 
main,  not  as  a  piece  of  self-sacrifice,  on  behalf  of  his 
people,  but  as  the  crowning  achievement  of  a  heroic 
career,  a  defense  of  his  title  as  the  mightiest  of  war- 
riors, which  will  bring  him,  if  he  wins,  a  substantial 
reward  in  the  hoard  of  gold  and  jewels.  In  order  to 
show  his  strength  and  valor,  he  attacks  the  monster 
single-handed.  He  would  even  like  to  fight  him  with 
bare  hands,  unaided  by  weapons,  as  he  did  Grendel,  if 
it  were  feasible.  He  feels  that  no  hero  less  valiant  than 
himself  ought  to  attempt  to  slay  the  dragon ;  he  says  to 
his  warriors,  "It  is  no  adventure  for  you,  nor  is  it  meet 
for  any  man,  save  for  me  alone,  to  measure  might  with 
the  monster  and  achieve  glory  in  fighting  him.  By 
my  prowess  will  I  win  the  gold,  or  else  battle,  a  perilous 
risking  of  life,  shall  take  away  your  lord."  He  thinks 
more  of  his  own  renown  than  about  the  sufferings  of 
his  people,  apparently,  and  in  his  dying  hour  he  wishes 
the  gold  and  jewels  brought  to  him  so  that  he  may  feast 
his  eyes  upon  them,  "and  thus,  having  seen  the  store 
of  treasure,  the  easier  yield  up  life  and  the  lordship 


BEOWULF  45 

which  I  long  have  held."  If  such  a  comparison  may 
be  ventured,  it  might  be  said  that  Beowulf  engages  in 
the  contest  with  the  dragon  in  about  the  spirit  of  the 
modern  prize-fighter  who  faces  a  challenging  opponent 
in  the  ring,  who  is  eager  to  win  for  the  sake  of  winning, 
but  who  thinks  also  of  the  purse  which  awaits  the  victor 
at  the  end.  Beowulf  sometimes  betrays  his  plebeian 
origin,  showing  us  that  before  he  was  made  an  illustrious 
prince  and  a  king  in  a  stately  epic,  he  was  once  a  crude 
demon-killing  champion,  desiring  nothing  more  lofty 
than  to  be  rich  and  famous. 

All  this  accords  ill  with  the  conception  of  Beowulf 
as  the  ideal  Germanic  king,  a  conception  clearly  in  the 
mind  of  the  poet  of  the  epic.  Indeed,  Beowulf  is  him- 
self conscious  of  his  responsibilities.  At  the  very  end, 
as  his  death  draws  near,  he  remembers  with  satisfaction 
that  he  has  done  his  duty  as  a  sovereign.  "  Fifty  years 
have  I  ruled  this  people;  yet  never  has  there  been  a 
king  of  all  the  neighboring  tribes  who  has  dared  make 
war  against  me,  sought  to  terrify  me.  In  my  home 
I  awaited  what  time  might  bring  me,  held  well  mine 
own,  sought  no  treacherous  feuds,  swore  no  false  oaths. 
In  all  this  can  I  rejoice,  though  sick  unto  death  with 
my  wounds."  And  at  his  funeral,  when  the  warriors, 
the  sons  of  athelings,  rode  about  the  burial  mound 
and  lamented  the  death  of  their  lord,  they  not  only 
"praised  his  heroism  and  fittingly  commended  his  deeds 
of  valor,"  but  they  also  said  that  he  was  "a  mighty 
king,  the  mildest  and  most  gracious,  the  gentlest  to 
his  people,  and  the  most  eager  for  praise."  In  aiming 
to  show  that  Beowulf  was  distinguished  as  a  sovereign, 
the  epic  often  mentions  his  royal  virtues,  but  it  only 


46  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

partially  succeeds  in  suppressing  the  earlier  conception 
of  his  character  as  a  hero  of  mere  brute  force. 

We  see,  then,  how  necessary  it  is  to  observe  the  way 
in  which  these  great  stories  developed,  if  we  are  to  judge 
of  them  as  reflections  of  social  ideals.  Such  a  poem 
as  this  becomes  doubly  significant  when  we  perceive 
that  it  reveals  two  different  stages  in  human  culture; 
while  if  we  try  to  reconcile  these  conflicting  conceptions, 
we  are  led  to  nothing  but  confusion  and  error.  As  it 
is,  we  can  see  that  the  ideals  of  earlier  times  would  no 
longer  serve  for  those  who  gave  the  poem  its  present 
shape,  that  men  had  come  to  demand  in  a  hero  some- 
thing more  than  a  mere  display  of  physical  strength, 
although  that  may  still  be  the  controlling  interest. 
I  can  scarcely  insist  too  strongly,  then,  that  we  must 
study  most  carefully  the  origin  and  development  of  the 
stories  which  we  are  to  consider  in  the  lectures  to  follow. 
Only  by  such  procedure  is  sound  criticism  possible. 
How  many  men  have  been  misled,  in  striving  to  pluck 
out  the  heart  of  the  mystery  in  the  play  of  'Hamlet/ 
by  failing  to  make  allowances  for  the  influence  of  the 
crude  old  story  of  blood  and  revenge  on  which  it  is 
based !  When  the  reflective  and  scholarly  Hamlet, 
"the  glass  of  fashion  and  the  mold  of  form/7  startles 
us  by  such  words  as  "now  could  I  drink  hot  blood/ J 
we  get  an  echo  of  the  earlier  and  cruder  conception  of 
his  character,  just  as  when  Beowulf  appears  to  think 
only  of  his  own  glory  in  performing  a  deed  which  is  to 
deliver  his  people  from  a  terrible  affliction. 

It  has  even  been  thought  that  we  may  trace  a  still 
earlier  stage  of  development  in  the  story,  that  the  hero 
was  once  not  a  mortal  at  all  but  a  divinity,  a  god  of 


BEOWULF  47 

summer  or  of  light,  perhaps,  whose  victory  over  Gren- 
del  is  merely  a  symbol  of  the  conquest  of  winter  or  of 
darkness  by  the  bright  and  beneficent  forces  of  nature. 
It  has  also  been  suggested  that  Grendel  may  stand  for 
the  malarial  mists  of  the  Low  Countries,  which  rack 
the  bones  of  men  with  fever,  just  as  Grendel  crunched 
them  in  his  teeth,  and  that  the  hero  was  once  a  wind-god 
who  blew  all  such  pestilential  vapors  far  away.  Such 
theories  as  these  are  misleading;  there  is  no  way  of 
proving  them,  nor  indeed,  of  disproving  them.  The 
vivid  imagination  of  early  peoples  undoubtedly  personi- 
fies the  forces  of  nature,  but  that  does  not  mean  that 
every  spook  or  dragon  in  early  story  is  merely  a  symbol 
for  some  one  of  these  forces.  A  giant  was  probably 
a  giant  to  most  men ;  a  dragon  was  a  dragon.  There  is 
no  indication  in  this  poem  that  the  case  was  different. 
And  so  if  we  take  the  poem  as  it  stands,  and  think  of 
Beowulf  as  a  mortal,  and  of  his  adversaries  only  as 
particularly  ugly  bugaboos,  we  shall  not  be  leaning  upon 
shaky  interpretations  to  which  the  text  gives  no  support. 
It  is  part  of  Beowulf  s  glory  that  while  his  exploits 
are  chiefly  against  supernatural  creatures,  he  is  himself 
only  a  human  being.  He  is  very  strong ;  his  strength, 
like  Sir  Galahad's,  is  as  the  strength  of  many  men,  not 
because  his  heart  is  pure,  however,  but  because  his 
biceps  is  hard.  This  is  all,  except  his  ability  to  exist 
under  water,  when  he  dives  into  the  haunted  pool  to 
kill  the  ogress.  This  was  a  power  often  vouchsafed  to 
mortals  in  early  story;  it 'is  indeed  familiar  enough  in 
modern  tales  of  the  supernatural.  Matthew  Arnold's 
touching  little  poem  of  the  'Forsaken  Merman'  tells 
of  a  mortal  maiden  who  went  to  dwell  under  the  waters, 


48  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

but  was  so  much  a  mortal  that  she  was  unhappy  until 
she  could  get  back  to  earth  once  more.  Beowulf  has 
no  advantages  but  his  strength  and  courage ;  by  these 
alone  he  wins.  Had  he  at  his  command  the  magic  which 
protects  Grendel,  or  the  fiery  defense  of  the  dragon, 
or  the  supernatural  powers  of  a  demigod,  the  credit  for 
his  victories  would  be  so  much  the  less. 

He  is  aided  by  no  divinities  from  above,  although  he 
piously  gives  the  Lord  thanks  for  his  victory.  The  epic 
is  very  different  in  this  respect  from  the  ' Iliad,'  in  which 
the  struggles  of  men  are  constantly  decided  by  the  gods, 
who  descend  to  earth  in  person,  turn  the  tide  of  battle, 
bicker  over  their  favorites,  and  are  altogether  human 
in  their  partiality.  The  final  outcome  of  the  struggles 
about  windy  Troy  is  mainly  due  to  their  intervention, 
not  to  the  superior  valor  of  certain  of  the  contestants. 
It  hardly  seems  fair  to  the  Homeric  heroes  to  have  their 
best  efforts  go  for  naught  by  the  operation  of  forces 
over  which  they  have  no  control.  There  is  nothing  of 
all  this  in  'Beowulf.'  If  pagan  deities  ever  played 
an  important  part,  they  have  vanished  from  the 
story.  The  Christian  Lord  of  Hosts  is  the  God  of 
Battles,  but  though  He  directs  the  universe,  He  does 
not  interfere  in  the  fighting.  Beowulf  knows  the  issue 
is  in  the  hands  of  the  Lord,  but  depends  on  his  own 
strength.  In  the  contest  with  the  mother  of  Grendel 
he  makes  a  successful  resistance,  so  the  poet  reminds  us 
piously,  because  the  Lord  is  on  his  side,  but  mainly  be- 
cause his  corselet  is  thick.  He  puts  his  trust  in  Heaven, 
but  he  keeps  his  powder  dry.  The  hand  of  God  is 
manifested  in  Beowulf's  struggles  in  about  the  same  way 
that  it  was  in  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 


BEOWULF  49 

The  poem  is,  of  course,  fundamentally  pagan  in  spirit. 
It  has  acquired  a  veneer  of  Christianity,  but  this  is  in 
places  so  thin  that  the  older  material  underneath  may 
be  clearly  discerned.  For  this  alteration  the  poet  who 
put  the  story  into  the  form  in  which  we  read  it  to-day 
was  probably  responsible.  He  tried  to  make  it  over 
into  a  good  religious  tale,  introducing  many  references 
to  the  Lord,  and  making  GrendePs  black  soul  still 
blacker  by  deriving  him  from  Cain,  the  progenitor 
of  so  many  evil  monsters.  But  the  change  was  only 
partly  successful.  Although  Beowulf  has  been  trans- 
formed into  a  good  devout  Christian,  with  his  mouth 
full  of  pious  phrases,  he  is  still  a  good  deal  of  a  heathen 
at  heart.  He  forgets  his  new  religion  frequently,  after 
the  manner  of  other  newly  converted  savages,  some- 
times attributing  death  and  destruction  to  Wyrd,  the 
heathen  goddess,  and  neglecting  God  completely  in  his 
reflections  as  to  the  way  in  which  the  universe  is  ruled. 
Unfortunately,  this  new  and  incongruous  material  has 
been  inlaid  into  the  main  substance  of  the  story  in  such 
a  way  that  it  cannot  be  taken  out  without  destroying 
the  beauty  of  the  whole.  Portions  of  the  original  have 
undoubtedly  been  sacrificed  to  make  room  for  it.  It 
cannot  be  removed  without  leaving  ugly  holes  and  gaps ; 
the  whole  effect,  however  incongruous,  is  better  if  it 
be  allowed  to  stand. 

One  of  the  mourners  at  Beowulf  s  funeral  pyre  is  his 
aged  wife,  who  utters  a  mournful  lament  for  the  de- 
parted hero,  and  foresees  evil  days  to  come.  Nothing 
at  all  has  been  said  of  her  earlier  in  the  poem ;  we  are 
completely  ignorant  of  her  lineage  and  her  character, 
and  of  the  circumstances  which  led  to  her  coming  as 


50  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

a  bride  to  the  court  of  the  king  of  the  Geats.  Striking 
indeed  is  the  contrast  to  later  poetry,  in  which  the  love- 
affairs  of  the  hero  are  often  of  equal  interest  with  his 
warlike  exploits.  In  this  epic  as  a  whole,  woman 
occupies  a  decidedly  minor  place.  Kings  are  appro- 
priately provided  with  queens,  who  are  properly  deco- 
rative, but  who  arouse  little  interest.  Royal  marriages 
in  the  surrounding  nations  are  often  mentioned,  but  for 
the  sake  of  politics  rather  than  of  sentiment.  There 
is  little  suggestion  of  the  love  of  youth  and  maiden, 
of  husband  and  wife.  The  affection  of  parents  for 
children  is  occasionally  recalled ;  when  Beowulf  goes  to 
Denmark  to  slay  the  monster  Grendel,  the  Danish  queen, 
in  a  pretty  passage,  attempts  to  enlist  the  sympathies 
of  the  great  foreign  hero  in  the  fortunes  of  her  sons, 
should  they  ever  stand  in  need  of  assistance.  But 
love  of  any  sort  has  little  place  in  this  poem ;  it  is  sup- 
planted by  the  sterner  emotions.  The  heroes  care 
much  more  for  their  proud  names  as  warriors  than  they 
do  for  love  or  life  or  religion.  Hence  the  whole  seems 
a  little  cold  and  hard,  a  little  lacking  in  human  sym- 
pathy. It  may  arouse  admiration;  it  seldom  touches 
the  heart. 

Moreover,  this  epic  is  in  many  ways  aristocratic,  with 
something  of  the  aristocrat's  pride  and  coldness.  It 
was  obviously  intended  for  refined  and  educated  circles, 
not  for  ruder  listeners  or  readers.  These  old  popular 
fairy-tale  adventures  have  acquired  a  prodigious 
amount  of  dignity  in  being  transferred  to  the  courts 
of  the  Scandinavian  kings.  At  these  courts  there  is  a 
deal  of  elaborate  etiquet,  —  no  rude  barbarian  manners. 
A  foreign  ambassador  at  Versailles  in  the  time  of 


BEOWULF  51 

Louis  XIV  can  hardly  have  been  received  with  more 
ceremony  than  was  Beowulf  when  he  arrived  at  the 
palace  of  King  Hrothgar,  upon  his  landing  in  Denmark. 
The  hero  was  not  allowed  to  walk  straight  into  the  royal 
presence  and  state  his  errand ;  he  and  his  warriors  were 
obliged  to  wait  outside  until  they  had  been  summoned 
by  the  herald,  and  given  permission  to  enter.  This 
functionary  did  not  abate  one  jot  of  the  usual  formalities; 
"he  knew  the  custom  of  the  court ,"  and  did  not  permit 
even  so  distinguished  a  stranger  as  Beowulf  to  enter  the 
hall  until  he  had  first  been  announced.  And  Beowulf, 
on  his  part,  went  through  all  the  formalities  in  the  proper 
way,  as  a  prince,  one  well  versed  in  all  matters  of  eti- 
quet,  ought  to  do.  In  all  this  ceremony  the  epic  poet 
takes  manifest  pleasure.  He  has  none  of  the  free  and 
easy  attitude  of  the  popular  story-teller  towards  royal 
personages;  he  treats  them  with  the  greatest  seriousness, 
even  telling  us,  first  and  last,  a  great  deal  about  the 
proper  sort  of  conduct  for  kings  and  queens.  Yet  a 
king  was  in  this  society  not  much  superior  to  the  ruling 
warrior  class  which  surrounded  him,  save  by  virtue  of 
the  rank  which  they  had  themselves  conferred  upon 
him.  If  the  ruler  of  the  Danes  maintained  the  ceremony 
of  a  Louis  XIV,  he  did  not  enjoy  so  much  power.  He 
could  not  have  said  "I  am  the  State ;"  he  was  its  head 
only  by  consent  of  those  who  would  otherwise  be  his 
peers.  He  had  very  definite  duties  towards  his  followers, 
—  he  took  the  lead  in  war  and  in  government,  and  he 
was  obliged  to  dispense  treasure  liberally  to  those  about 
him.  Stinginess  was  universally  condemned  as  one  of 
the  worst  possible  faults  for  a  king  to  have.  Social 
relations  at  this  period  are  not  wholly  clear,  but  it  is 


52  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

evident  that  the  society,  though  aristocratic,  was  com- 
paratively simple.  There  were  few  elaborate  distinc- 
tions of  rank,  and  service  as  a  warrior  was  in  itself  a  title 
to  honor.  With  the  slave  and  the  freedman  such  poetry 
as  this  refuses  to  deal.  It  is  not  snobbish,  but  it  does 
not  hold  the  actions  of  meaner  men  to  be  fit  themes  for 
heroic  song. 

We  may  call  the  social  body  represented  in  'Beowulf 
a  democratic  aristocracy.  It  is  ruled  by  the  king  and 
by  the  powerful  nobles,  but  those  who  do  not  occupy 
exalted  positions  are  not  despised.  There  is  a  certain 
large  simplicity  about  the  intercourse  of  men  with  each 
other,  as  there  is  in  the  performance  of  their  deeds  of 
valor.  The  situation  is  much  like  that  in  the  Old 
French  '  Song  of  Roland/  which  we  are  presently  to  con- 
sider. This  poem  and  '  Beowulf '  have  often  been  called 
heroic,  in  contradistinction  to  those  of  the  epoch  which 
followed,  the  era  of  feudalism  and  chivalry,  the  age  of 
medieval  romance.  In  the  later  or  romantic  period 
there  is  always  a  certain  condescension  in  the  relation  of 
lord  to  commoner.  Distinctions  of  caste  affect  all  the 
relationships  of  life ;  the  man  of  gentler  birth  feels  him- 
self in  every  way  the  superior  being.  But  Beowulf  and 
his  warriors,  or  Hrothgar  and  the  men  gathered  in  his 
hall,  or  Roland  and  the  Twelve  Peers  of  France,  think 
far  less  about  their  exalted  rank;  they  are  content  to 
assume  the  responsibilities  of  leadership,  without  affect- 
ing to  ignore  those  for  whom  these  duties  have  been 
undertaken.  They  are  no  less  noble,  but  they  are  less 
haughtily  conscious  of  their  nobility. 

The  epic  of  'Beowulf/  then,  proclaims  the  glory  of 
the  most  incomparable  of  heroes,  placed  in  the  highest 


BEOWULF 


rf 


position  in  the  ruling  class  of  a  warlike  and  democratic, 
yet  cultivated  and  highly  conventionalized  society.  It 
portrays  the  marvelous  valor  of  such  a  champion,  who 
is  obliged  to  contend  against  adversaries  of  super- 
human powers,  and  it  exalts  before  all  things  else  his 
courage  and  physical  strength.  Yet  it  conceives  him 
as  a  human  being,  with  no  relish  of  divinity  about  him, 
no  advantages  not  vouchsafed  to  mortals.  It  further 
emphasizes  the  ideal  virtues  of  the  hero  as  king,  — 
generosity,  ambition,  moderation,  wisdom.  By  im- 
plication and  by  precept  it  sets  forth  the  beauty  of 
devoted  service  and  the  baseness  of  treachery.  It  is 
the  epic  of  the  smaller  state,  of  the  tribe  rather  than  of 
the  nation,  hence  it  is  lacking  in  patriotic  fervor.  It  is 
the  epic  of  converted  paganism,  in  which  the  heathen 
belief  is  not  wholly  dead,  and  the  Christianity  not  wholly 
spontaneous,  hence  it  is  lacking  in  religious  emotion. 
It  is  the  epic  of  brute  force,  hence  it  is  lacking  in  the 
softer  feelings  of  mankind,  in  the  love  of  wife  and  of 
child.  Perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  assert,  however, 
that  in  its  lofty  spirit,  its  vigor,  and  its  sincerity,  it 
truly  represents  the  foundations  of  the  modern  Anglo- 
Saxon  character,  that  it  reflects  traits  which  unite  British 
and  Americans  at  the  present  day,  traits  which  are 
distinctive  of  English-speaking  people  throughout  the 
world. 


Ill 

THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND 


J'aime  le  son  du  cor,  le  soir,  au  fond  des  bois, 
Soit  qu'il  chante  les  pleurs  de  la  biche  aux  abois, 
Ou  F  adieu  du  chasseur  que  l'e*cho  faible  accueille, 
Et  que  le  vent  du  nord  porte  de  feuille  en  feuille. 

Que  de  fois,  seul,  dans  T ombre  &  minuit  demeure*, 
J'ai  souri  de  F  entendre,  et  plus  souvent  pleure* ! 
Car  je  croyais  ouir  de  ces  bruits  prophe*tiques 
Qui  pre*cedaient  la  mort  des  Paladins  antiques. 

O  montagne  d'azur  !    6  pays  adore"  ! 
Rocs  de  la  Frazona,  cirque  de  Marbore*, 
Cascades  qui  tombez  des  neiges  entraine*es, 
Sources,  gaves,  ruisseaux,  torrents  des  Pyre*ne*es ; 

Monts  gele*s  et  fleuris,  trone  des  deux  saisons, 
Dont  le  front  est  de  glace  et  le  pied  de  gazons  ! 
C'est  la  qu'il  faut  s'asseoir,  c'est  la  qu'il  faut  entendre 
Les  airs  lointains  d'un  cor  melancolique  et  tendre. 
******* 

Ames  des  Chevaliers,  revenez-vous  encor  ? 
Est-ce  vous  qui  parlez  avec  la  voix  du  cor  ? 
Roncevaux  !  Roncevaux  !  dans  ta  sombre  valle*e 
L'ombre  du  grand  Roland  n'est  done  pas  console ! 

—  ALFRED  DE  VIGNY. 


Ill 

THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND 

ANYONE  who  walks  through  the  Italian  quarter  of 
New  York  City  in  the  evening  may  notice  over  a  door- 
way an  illuminated  sign,  THEATER  OF  MARIONETTES. 
If  his  curiosity  tempts  him  inside,  into  the  low  room 
crowded  with  enthusiastic  spectators,  he  will  see,  on 
a  rude  stage,  a  group  of  puppets  almost  as  large  as 
life,  representing  knights  and  ladies,  acting  out  a  little 
drama  in  response  to  the  jerking  of  strings  fastened 
to  their  arms  and  iron  rods  firmly  fixed  in  their  heads. 
The  warriors  are  gorgeously  attired  in  shining  armor 
and  plumed  helmets,  and  the  ladies  have  wonderful 
costumes  of  bright  colors,  with  a  great  deal  of  em- 
broidery and  decoration.  An  Italian  in  his  shirt-sleeves, 
half-concealed  in  the  " wings"  at  the  side  of  the  stage, 
speaks  their  lines  for  them,  with  all  the  elocutionary 
flourishes  which  he  can  command.  Fiercely  immobile 
as  to  expression,  but  most  active  as  to  arms  and  legs, 
these  manikins  march  about,  soliloquize,  make  love, 
and  debate  in  council.  But  it  is  their  battles  which 
arouse  the  greatest  enthusiasm  among  the  audience, 
and  indeed  these  are  fought  in  a  way  that  is  a  joy 
to  see.  Then  it  is  that  heroic  deeds  are  done,  — 
tin  swords  resound  upon  tin  armor,  helmets  are  bat- 
tered about  and  knocked  off,  dust  rises  from  the  field, 

57 


58  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  valiant  dead  fall  in  staring  heaps.  At  such  mo- 
ments the  spectators  can  hardly  restrain  themselves 
for  emotion,  yet  the  story  itself  is  well  known  to  them, 
—  perhaps  some  one  sitting  near  by  will  volunteer  to 
explain  it,  asserting  that  he  has  known  it  ever  since  he 
was  a  boy,  and  that  he  has  read  it  all  in  a  book  which 
he  has  at  home  called  the  'Reali  di  Francia.'  It  is  a 
version  of  the  old  tale  of  Charlemagne  and  his  knights, 
which,  after  traveling  far  from  its  native  home  in  France, 
was  taken  up  by  the  Italian  people  many  centuries  ago, 
and  made  so  much  their  own  that  few  heroes  have  been 
closer  to  their  hearts  than  Roland,  or  as  they  call  him, 
Orlando.  Even  in  their  homes  in  the  New  World  they 
still  celebrate  him,  so  that  the  very  newsboys  in  the 
streets  of  modern  America  are 'keeping  alive  the  heroic 
traditions  of  the  age  of  Charlemagne. 

No  story  illustrates  better  than  this  the  popularity 
of  heroes  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  other  countries  than 
their  own.  We  have  already  observed,  in  considering 
'  Beowulf/  how  Germanic  worthies  were  welcomed, 
irrespective  of  their  nationality,  wherever  the  fame  of 
their  exploits  had  spread.  And  so  it  was  in  later  days ; 
Charlemagne  and  Roland  conquered  the  hearts  of  the 
people  of  Germany,  Italy,  Spain,  Scandinavia,  and 
England,  just  as  the  victorious  armies  of  the  French 
were  fabled  to  have  left  little  of  Western  Europe  un- 
subdued. The  accounts  of  their  prowess  were  much 
altered,  it  is  true,  in  foreign  countries.  The  Italians 
provided  Roland  with  many  new  and  strange  adven- 
tures, and  took  care  that  he  should  have  plenty  of 
experience  in  love-making.  The  Germans  conceived 
him  differently,  sometimes  emphasizing  his  devotion  to 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  59 

religion,  sometimes  seeing  in  his  burly  figure  an  em- 
bodiment of  civic  virtue.  In  some  of  the  older  towns  of 
Germany,  as  for  example  the  old  free  city  of  Bremen, 
there  may  be  seen  in  the  market-place  or  in  some  public 
square  a  rude  stone  statue,  fierce  of  expression,  and 
armed  with  a  huge  club.  The  name  of  this  giant  is 
Roland,  and  he  stands  as  a  protector  of  the  liberties 
of  the  citizens,  as  a  symbol  of  municipal  justice.  Still 
more  altered  is  the  hero  of  the  marionette  shows  in 
America  to-day.  But  we  cannot  be  surprised  at  these 
changes ;  the  marvelous  thing  is  that  these  old  stories 
have  survived  so  long,  and  that  the  champion  whom 
they  celebrate  is,  in  a  sense,  as  much  alive  to-day  as  he 
ever  was  in  legend.  Neglected  in  his  native  France  at 
the  present  time,  Roland  seems  assured  of  immortality 
by  his  popularity  in  foreign  lands. 

This  is  all  the  more  striking,  since  the  tale  of  Roland 
and  Charlemagne  was  in  the  beginning  a  glorification 
of  the  French,  a  triumphant  outburst  of  French  patriot- 
ism. No  medieval  story  is  more  completely  the  expres- 
sion of  the  ideals  of  a  single  nation.  From  beginning 
to  end,  the  'Song  of  Roland7  throbs  with  enthusiasm 
for  " sweet  France,"  with  ardent  desire  to  advance  her 
fortunes,  and  to  protect  her  from  disgrace.  It  is 
patriotism  incarnate  in  verse.  In  a  larger  sense,  the 
ideals  which  the  poem  sets  forth  are  not  only  those  of 
medieval  times,  but  of  the  France  of  later  centuries  as 
well,  — ideals  to  which  the  nation  owes  much  of  its 
glory.  Even  if  the  stirring  old  epic  is  no  longer  familiar 
to  the  people  of  France  as  a  whole,  it  breathes  much 
the  same  spirit  which  has  animated  them  in  great  crises 
of  modern  times.  During  the  gloomy  days  of  the 


60  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

Franco-Prussian  war  which  followed  the  disaster  of 
Sedan,  the  great  French  scholar  Gaston  Paris  saw  hope 
for  the  future  of  his  country  in  the  persistence  of  its 
national  idealism  —  a  vision  which  was  destined  to 
brilliant  fulfilment  —  and  he  illustrated  his  meaning  by 
referring  to  this  poem.  "Two  things  are  left  us,"  he 
said,  "of  which,  let  us  hope,  nothing  can  deprive  us, 
two  of  the  three  elements  of  the  national  idea  in  the 
'Song  of  Roland/  —  the  love  of  the  soil,  of  'sweet 
France/  and  the  sentiment  of  national  honor,  in  which 
we  are  all  united."  And  it  may  be  noted  that  one  of 
the  first  great  theatrical  successes  in  Paris  after  the  close 
of  the  war  was  Henri  de  Bornier's  poetic  drama,  'La 
Fille  de  Roland/ 

In  order  fully  to  understand  the  spirit  of  the  poem, 
we  must  remember  that  it  is  at  once  the  epic  of  the  eighth 
century  and  of  the  eleventh  century.  Its  historical 
basis  lies  in  the  age  of  Charlemagne;  its  final  develop- 
ment in  the  age  of  William  the  Conqueror.  Under  the 
sovereignty  of  Charlemagne,  the  Frankish  people  be- 
came the  center  of  a  truly  imposing  empire,  extending 
on  the  north  into  what  is  now  modern  Germany,  and 
on  the  south  far  into  the  Italian  peninsula.  They  were 
successful  not  only  in  conquest,  but  also  in  gaining  the 
support  of  the  Church  in  maintaining  and  extending 
their  power ;  the  Pope  himself  crowned  their  king  with 
solemn  ceremonial  as  head  of  the  Western  Roman 
Empire,  —  afterwards  that  "Holy  Roman  Empire" 
which  was  to  have  such  a  strange  history.  This  soli- 
darity of  the  Franks  in  their  own  territories  at  home 
created  among  them  a  truly  patriotic  sentiment,  while 
the  magnificence  of  their  domains  abroad  aroused  among 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  61 

them  a  national  pride,  such  as  had  never  developed 
among  the  Germanic  peoples  who  had  sung  of  the  deeds 
of  Beowulf.  Even  after  the  disruption  of  the  vast 
empire  of  Charlemagne,  this  proud  consciousness  of 
national  glory  still  persisted ;  the  State  as  such  did  not 
go  out  of  existence  completely,  nor  was  there  lack  of 
reverence  for  the  kingly  power,  sanctioned  and  con- 
firmed as  it  was  by  Divine  authority.  The  accidents 
of  political  change  could  not  wholly  destroy  a  heroic 
tradition.  The  persistence  of  this  feeling  of  national 
unity  is  well  illustrated  in  the  'Song  of  Roland/  which 
was  mainly  developed,  not  during  the  glorious  days  of 
the  Carolingian  empire,  but  in  the  time  of  its  disruption, 
when  the  power  of  the  king  was  small,  and  that  of  the 
nobles  was  great.  Although  it  rests  upon  the  historical 
traditions  of  the  former  age,  and  is  informed  with  much 
of  its  spirit,  the  earliest  and  best  version  of  it  extant 
dates  from  the  end  of  the  eleventh  century,  and  the 
political  and  social  ideals  which  it  sets  forth  are  in  large 
measure  those  of  that  period. 

Tradition  has  it  that  the  French  marched  into  battle 
at  Hastings  listening  to  the  recital  of  the  deeds  of 
Charlemagne  and  his  knights  from  the  lips  of  a  minstrel 
named  Taillefer.  As  the  old  chronicler  puts  it:  — 

Taillefer  spoke  well  indeed, 
Mounted  on  a  coursing  steed, 
Singing  in  the  ducal  train 
Of  Roland  and  of  Charlemagne, 
Of  Oliver  and  many  a  brave  vassal 
Who  lost  his  life  at  Roncesvalles. 

And  Taillefer  begged  Duke  William  of  Normandy,  as 
the  chronicler  goes  on  to  relate,  that  he  might  have  the 


62  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

privilege  of  striking  the  first  blow  in  the  ensuing  battle. 
The  'Song  of  Roland/  then,  which  rang  out  in  the  very 
forefront  of  the  advancing  Norman  host,  may  well  stand 
for  the  new  French  element  added  to  the  English  people 
by  the  Conquest,  just  as  i Beowulf7  may  represent  the 
older  Germanic  elements,  Anglo-Saxon  and  Scandina- 
vian, which  had  formerly  dominated  the  island.  Later, 
in  the  legends  of  Arthur  and  his  knights,  we  shall  see  the 
influence  of  a  still  more  brilliant  and  imposing  France, 
giving  to  the  surrounding  nations  the  refinements  of 
the  developed  system  of  chivalry,  and  the  culture  of 
a  gentler  age.  But  we  must  not  be  unduly  dazzled  by 
the  magnificence  of  the  later  period.  The  contribution 
of  earlier  days  was  less  ornamental,  but  more  enduring. 
It  is  often  said  that  it  was  most  fortunate  for  the 
English  that  the  Normans  were  victorious  in  the  battle 
of  Hastings.  The  vigor  and  enterprise  of  the  French, 
who  were  then  just  coming  into  prominence  in  Western 
Europe,  were  just  the  qualities  of  which  the  island  race 
stood  most  in  need.  The  glory  of  the  Saxons  was  over; 
they  had  for  years  been  distracted  by  internal  dissen- 
sions, and  disheartened  by  the  rule  of  a  Scandinavian 
people,  who  had  long  been  their  enemies.  Had  William 
the  Conqueror  never  crossed  the  Channel,  and  set  up 
his  standard  on  British  soil,  the  future  of  the  English 
would  indeed  have  been  far  different.  But  the  new 
ideals  which  were  brought  in  by  William  and  his  fol- 
lowers, ideals  of  a  young  and  ardent  nation,  combining 
with  the  sterling  qualities  of  the  native  Saxon  stock, 
produced,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  a  race  second  in 
distinction  to  none  in  Europe.  The  union  of  the  two 
peoples  was  like  the  marriage  of  a  medieval  monarch 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  63 

and  a  captive  princess  of  a  stranger  folk.  Subdued  in 
the  beginning  completely  to  the  power  of  the  conqueror, 
the  mother-race  asserted  herself  in  later  times  by  trans- 
mitting her  own  characteristics  to  the  children  born  of 
this  union. 

We  sometimes  think  of  the  Norman  Conquest  as  the 
invasion  of  an  alien  people.  The  new-comers  spoke  a 
different  tongue  from  the  English,  they  were  unlike  them 
in  manners  and  in  social  organization,  and  they  made 
war  after  a  different  fashion.  Yet  it  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  they  were  really  of  the  same  Germanic  stock, 
that  the  Normans  who  invaded  England  were  so  named 
because  they  were  descendants  of  the  Northmen,  the 
Scandinavians,  men  of  the  same  race  who  had  in  the 
beginning  celebrated  the  valor  of  Beowulf,  before  the 
Anglo-Saxons  perpetuated  his  fame  in  their  epic.  These 
Northmen  came  to  settle  in  what  is  now  modern  France 
only  about  a  century  and  a  half  before  Duke  William 
sailed  for  the  shores  of  England  on  his  voyage  of  con- 
quest. Other  Frenchmen,  some  of  whom  went  over 
with  him,  or  followed  later,  were  likewise  of  German 
extraction,  —  the  Burgundians,  for  example,  who  had 
once  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  It  is  there  that 
they  dwell  in  the  'Nibelungenlied'  and  in  the  great 
'Ring  of  the  Nibelungen'  music-dramas  of  Richard 
Wagner.  We  realize  the  singular  fact  that  the  French 
people  are  partly  of  German  origin  when  we  remember 
that  the  very  name  "  France "  is  derived  from  a  Ger- 
man people,  the  Franks,  who  had  once  lived  far  north 
of  the  present  boundary  between  the  two  countries. 
Ultimately  these  various  tribes  were  fused  with  the 
older  Gallo-Romanic  population,  and  thus  modern 


64  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

France  came  into  being.  The  incoming  peoples  adopted 
the  language  of  their  new  homes,  just  as  their  descend- 
ants were  later  to  do  in  the  British  Isles. 

This  dualism  of  national  origin  produced  no  effect 
upon  the  sentiment  of  unity  which  permeates  the  '  Song 
of  Roland/  The  fusion  of  the  different  elements  in 
the  French  people  brought  with  it,  indeed,  a  patriotism 
so  intense  as  to  seem  too  self-centered.  In  '  Beowulf ' 
the  interest  is  confined  to  no  one  people,  and  the  folk 
of  various  lands  are  duly  praised;  in  the  ' Roland/  on 
the  other  hand,  the  French  are  the  undisputed  heroes, 
and  no  other  Christian  peoples  are  worth  mentioning. 
If  we  hear  a  good  deal  about  the  Saracens,  it  is  not  be- 
cause the  exploits  of  the  Saracens  are  in  themselves  re- 
markable, but  because  the  French  warriors  must  have 
worthy  adversaries  in  order  to  exhibit  their  own  valor. 
In  this  lack  of  interest  in  other  nations  the  l Roland' 
stands  in  sharp  contrast  to  'Beowulf/  and  yet  there  is 
much  to  suggest  the  fundamental  kinship  of  the  two 
poems,  and  to  remind  us  that  the  ideals  of  the  French 
epic  are  rooted  in  Germanic  as  well  as  in  Romanic 
customs. 

The  opening  scenes  of  'Beowulf '  reveal  the  magnifi- 
cence of  a  royal  court  of  the  earlier  period,  in  a  great 
mead-hall  filled  with  feasting  warriors  and  echoing  to 
the  strains  of  the  harp  and  the  clear  voice  of  the  min- 
strel. The  'Song  of  Roland/  too,  shows  us  a  great 
monarch  surrounded  by  his  nobles  and  retainers,  but 
the  picture  is  far  different.  Here  there  is  no  murky 
northern  twilight,  with  the  sinister  mists  of  the  even- 
ing hanging  over  the  haunted  dunes  by  the  seashore ; 
Charlemagne  holds  his  court  in  the  brilliant  sunshine 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  65 

of  Southern  Europe,  out  of  doors,  for  he  is  absent  from 
home  on  a  campaign  in  Spain.  The  royal  throne,  made 
all  of  beaten  gold,  is  placed  beneath  a  pine  tree;  the 
knights  sit  about  the  grass  on  cloths  of  white  silk. 
Some  amuse  themselves  by  playing  games,  others  by 
exercising  with  swords.  In  this  bright  and  pleasant 
scene  there  is  little  suggestion  of  the  tragedy  to  come. 
The  Emperor  is  glad  at  heart,  for  he  has  been  successful 
in  his  long  campaign  of  seven  years  against  the  "  Sara- 
cens'7 ;  he  has  subdued  all  Spain,  save  only  Saragossa, 
in  which  King  Marsilie  is  intrenched.  And  now  the 
pagan  monarch,  driven  to  desperation  by  continued 
reverses,  has  sent  a  treacherous  embassy  to  Charlemagne, 
promising  many  things  if  the  French  will  consent  to 
abandon  their  campaign  in  Spain.  With  olive  branches 
in  their  hands,  the  emissaries  arrive  at  the  Christian 
camp,  and  deliver  their  message  to  the  venerable  king 
as  he  sits  beneath  the  pine.  "No  need  have  they  to 
ask  which  is  the  Emperor."  On  the  following  day, 
the  barons  are  summoned  to  a  council  to  consider  the 
Saracen  overtures.  Count  Roland  advises  against  the 
acceptance  of  these  offers,  reminding  the  assembly  of  the 
tragic  fate  of  two  French  envoys  who  were  sent  on  a 
previous  occasion  when  the  pagans  had  sued  for  peace. 
His  advice  is  that  the  war  shall  be  waged  to  the  bitter 
end,  and  past  injuries  be  avenged.  But  Ganelon,  his 
stepfather,  urges  the  contrary,  pointing  out  that  pride 
should  not  decide  the  issue,  and  that  boastful  speech 
should  have  no  weight.  And  his  counsel  is  adopted; 
the  Saracen  proposals  are  accepted.  But  who  shall 
carry  this  message  back  to  the  pagan  king?  No  safe 
or  pleasant  errand  will  this  be,  for,  as  Roland  has  said, 


66  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  men  who  had  undertaken  a  similar  errand  were  bru- 
tally murdered.  Roland  offers  to  go,  and  so  does  his 
friend  and  comrade  Oliver,  but  Charlemagne  will  not 
listen  to  their  proposals.  Then  on  a  sudden  Roland  says, 
"Let  it  be  Ganelon,  my  stepfather." 

The  French  say,  "He  will  do  this  service  well;  if  ye  leave  him 
out  of  account,  ye  will  send  no  wiser  man."  Then  said  the  King, 
"  Ganelon,  come  thou  forward,  and  receive  the  staff  and  the  glove. 
Thou  hast  heard,  the  French  have  chosen  thee."  "  Lord,"  said 
Ganelon,  "it  is  Roland  who  has  done  all  this;  never  again  in  my 
life  shall  I  love  him,  nor  Oliver,  since  he  is  his  companion,  nor  the 
Twelve  Peers,  because  they  are  devoted  to  him.  In  thy  sight, 
Lord,  I  defy  them  all ! " 

Here  we  have  the  beginning  of  the  tragic  complica- 
tions. Roland  and  his  stepfather  hate  each  other,  it  is 
clear.  Step-relations  have  never  agreed  any  better  in 
story  than  in  real  life.  Moreover,  Roland  increases 
Ganelon's  anger  to  white  heat  by  scornful  jesting.  And 
so  Ganelon  rides  down  into  the  paynim  city  in  a  towering 
rage,  and  on  the  way  promises  the  ambassador  of  King 
Marsilie  to  betray  his  country  for  the  satisfaction  of  his 
revenge  and  for  riches.  Arrived  at  the  Saracen  court,  he 
advises  the  king  to  feign  submission  to  Charlemagne, 
and  then  fall  on  his  army  as  he  retreats  from  Spain, 
and  so  to  destroy  the  rear-guard,  when  it  is  divided  from 
the  main  host.  In  this  section  of  the  army  he  plans  to 
arrange  that  Roland  shall  be  placed.  So  indeed  it 
turns  out.  Ganelon  returns  to  the  French,  announces 
that  peace  has  been  concluded,  and  completes  his  traitor- 
ous schemes.  The  Emperor  is  troubled  with  bad 
dreams,  omens  of  disaster,  but  he  withdraws  from 
Spain,  leaving  behind  only  the  rear-guard,  containing 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  67 

the  flower  of  his  chivalry.     Meanwhile  the  pagans  gather 
for  the  attack. 

The  next  scene  is  a  battle-piece,  a  long  and  elaborate 
description  of  the  bloody  conflict  in  the  defiles  of  the 
Pyrenees.  "High  are  the  hills  and  dark  the  valleys/' 
but  Oliver,  the  friend  of  Roland,  ascending  a  mountain, 
sees  in  the  distance  the  glitter  of  armor,  and  knows  it  is 
the  heathen  advancing  against  the  French.  He  urges 
his  comrade  to  sound  his  horn,  and  summon  the  Em- 
peror to  their  assistance.  But  Roland  refuses ;  he  will 
not  ask  for  help. 

Oliver  climbs  a  high  mountain,  and  looks  off  to  the  right  into  a 
grassy  valley,  and  he  sees  the  army  of  the  pagans  advancing.  He 
calls  to  Roland  his  companion,  "  From  Spain  I  see  a  great  mass  of 
armed  men,  of  glittering  hauberks  and  flaming  helmets.  Great  in- 
jury will  they  do  to  our  band  of  Frenchmen.  Ganelon  the  traitor 
hath  betrayed  us;  it  was  he  who  assigned  us  to  the  rear-guard,  in 
the  presence  of  the  Emperor."  "  Be  silent,  Oliver/7  answers 
Count  Roland,  "  he  is  the  husband  of  my  mother,  I  would  have 
you  speak  no  word  against  him."  .  .  .  Says  Oliver,  "  The  pagans 
have  a  mighty  host,  and  small  indeed  seems  the  number  of  our 
French  soldiers.  Comrade  Roland,  sound  thy  horn!  Charles  will 
hear  it  and  the  French  will  return."  Roland  answers,  "  Folly 
would  that  be;  all  honor  should  I  lose  in  sweet  France.  Great 
blows  will  I  strike  with  Durendal;  the  blade  of  the  sword  shall  be 
covered  with  blood  even  unto  the  golden  hilt.  In  an  evil  hour  for 
them  have  the  pagans  come  into  these  mountain  passes.  I  warrant 
thee,  they  shall  soon  be  dead  men!" 

Then  the  conflict  begins,  and  the  French  and  the  Sara- 
cens fight  a  series  of  fearful  hand-to-hand  combats,  but 
the  overwhelming  pagan  force,  four  hundred  thousand 
strong,  is  too  much  for  the  twenty  thousand  French 
warriors.  Finally,  after  appalling  slaughter,  Roland 
at  last  resolves  to  blow  the  horn  and  summon  assistance, 


68  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

and  with  a  mighty  effort  sounds  a  long  peal,  so  loud  and 
clear  that  the  Emperor  hears  it  in  the  distance,  and  turns 
back.  But  he  comes  too  late ;  while  he  hastens  south- 
ward, the  French  of  the  rear-guard  are  all  slain,  Roland 
only  remaining  alive.  He  too  is  near  death,  for  the  ef- 
fort of  sounding  the  horn  has  burst  his  temples.  So 
he  lies  down  beneath  a  pine  tree  and  he  dies,  first  vainly 
endeavoring  to  break  his  sword  Durendal,  that  no 
pagan  may  bear  it  after  his  death. 

Count  Roland  has  laid  him  down  beneath  a  pine  tree,  towards 
Spain  has  he  turned  his  face.  Many  things  he  calls  to  memory,  — 
all  the  lands  which  he  has  conquered  as  a  warrior,  and  sweet  France, 
the  men  of  his  kindred  and  Charlemagne  his  lord,  who  fostered  him 
as  a  youth.  He  cannot  restrain  his  sighs  and  his  tears.  But  of 
himself  he  would  not  be  forgetful,  he  confesses  his  sins  and  prays 
unto  God  for  mercy,  —  "Our  Father,  who  never  hast  deceived 
mankind,  who  hast  raised  up  Lazarus  from  the  dead  and  protected 
Daniel  from  the  lions,  save  and  defend  thou  my  soul  against  all 
perils  to  which  the  sins  I  have  done  in  my  past  life  have  exposed 
it ! "  In  his  right  hand  he  lifts  up  his  glove  to  heaven,  and  St. 
Gabriel  receives  it.  Then  the  head  of  Roland  sinks  upon  his  arm, 
and  with  clasped  hands  he  dies.  God  sends  down  his  cherubim, 
and  St.  Michael  of  the  Peril  of  the  Seas,  and  together  with  them 
comes  St.  Gabriel.  And  they  carry  the  soul  of  the  count  into 
Paradise. 

The  main  theme  of  all  this  is  plainly  Valor,  and  not  so 
much  the  valor  of  one  man  alone,  as  in  'Beowulf/  al- 
though Roland  engages  the  chief  interest,  but  of  the 
whole  French  army.  In  the  terrible  hours  in  the  pass  of 
Roncesvalles,  Roland  is  no  more  distinguished  for  his 
courage  than  are  any  of  the  rest ;  he  is  only  a  more  for- 
midable champion.  The  achievements  of  his  compan- 
ions are  always  treated  with  the  greatest  respect,  and 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  69 

they  are  severally  described  in  detail.  Every  one  is  a 
fighter,  even  the  Archbishop  Turpin,  with  his  fair  white 
hands,  who  girds  himself  up  like  the  medieval  Popes, 
and  swinges  mightily  the  enemies  of  God.  The  poet  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  epic  seldom  assigns  any  prominent  part 
to  those  surrounding  the  hero.  Beowulf,  like  the  Turk, 
bears  no  brother  near  the  throne.  We  do  not  think  of 
the  band  of  picked  warriors  who  accompanied  him  to 
Denmark  when  he  slew  Grendel  as  his  equals ;  his  im- 
posing figure  hides  them  from  view,  and  little  is  said  of 
their  exploits.  Not  so  with  the  comrades  of  Roland. 
The  Twelve  Peers  of  France  are  the  equals  of  the  greater 
hero  in  everything  but  the  possession  of  surpassing 
might ;  their  courage  is  as  high  as  his,  and  they  are  fully 
worthy  to  share  his  glory.  In  this  drama  there  are  many 
important  characters,  who  play  their  parts  nobly; 
the  principal  figure  has  no  monopoly  of  the  stage. 

The  whole  evolution  of  the  story,  too,  is  different  from 
that  of  'Beowulf.'  The  Anglo-Saxon  epic  grew  up  by 
the  addition  of  history  to  fairy-tales.  The  French  story 
has  developed  from  actual  historical  events.  These 
have,  it  is  true,  been  almost  completely  transformed, 
but  they  are,  nevertheless,  in  the  last  analysis,  real 
occurrences.  In  short,  '  Beowulf  represents  imagina- 
tion modified  by  history;  ' Roland'  represents  history 
modified  by  imagination.  It  must  always  be  remem- 
bered that  each  epic  has  passed  through  many  transmu- 
tations, in  oral  transmission,  and  that  these  are  not 
merely  matters  of  external  decoration,  but  of  plot  and 
structure  as  well.  When  all  elaborations  have  been 
removed,  when  due  allowance  has  been  made  for  all 
changes,  and  when  the  bare  skeleton  of  historical  fact 


70  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

which  supports  the  whole  stands  revealed,  we  cannot  but 
be  astonished  at  the  transformation  of  such  a  tiny 
acorn  of  truth  into  such  a  mighty  oak  of  epic.  There 
was  once  a  combat  in  the  Pyrenees,  in  which  the  rear- 
guard of  Charlemagne's  army,  which  was  guarding  the 
baggage-train,  was  attacked  and  routed  with  great 
slaughter.  One  of  the  officers  who  was  killed  was 
"  Hruodlandus, "  governor  of  the  March  of  Brittany. 
With  the  exception  of  a  few  details,  and  the  remark  that 
it  was  impossible  to  take  immediate  vengeance  upon  the 
enemy,  this  is  practically  all  that  history  has  to  say 
about  the  main  incident  of  the  epic.  Roland  does  not 
seem  to  have  been  more  distinguished  than  other  offi- 
cers ;  in  one  early  account  he  is  not  mentioned  at  all, 
and  in  the  chief  authority,  the  'Life  of  Charlemagne7 
by  Eginhard,  he  is  only  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  French, 
and  he  is  mentioned  last  of  the  three.  The  whole  affair 
was  an  episode,  not  a  great  national  calamity,  but  it  took 
such  a  hold  upon  the  imagination  of  the  people  that  it 
was  magnified  entirely  out  of  its  true  proportions,  and 
altered  in  whatever  ways  appeared  to  increase  its  inter- 
est and  significance.  Historically  there  was  no  treason, 
no  Ganelon  as  stepfather  and  traitor,  Roland  was  not 
the  nephew  of  Charlemagne,  and  the  combat  was  not 
with  the  Spanish  Mohammedans,  or  "  Saracens/7  as  the 
poem  styles  them,  but  with  the  Basque  mountaineers. 
It  was,  in  all  probability,  much  like  a  sharp  guerilla 
attack.  The  marauding  Basques  of  the  Pyrenees  were 
chiefly  intent  upon  robbing  the  baggage  of  Charle- 
magne's army,  hence  they  fell  upon  the  French  army 
in  the  rear,  when  it  was  forced  to  advance  in  dispersed 
formation,  on  account  of  the  difficulties  of  the  journey. 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  71 

After  the  engagement  was  over,  they  crept  back  to  their 
hiding-places,  where  it  was  impossible  to  reach  them. 
Historically  there  was  no  glorious  revenge,  as  in  the 
epic.  All  the  magnificence  of  the  story  as  we  read  it  in 
the  Old  French,  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  war, 
the  burnished  armor,  the  waving  pennons,  the  flashing 
swords,  the  jeweled  helmets,  the  golden-bossed  shields, 
the  serried  ranks  of  armed  men,  —  all  this  is  a  growth  of 
later  times.  It  is  a  part  of  the  same  tendency  which 
makes  Charlemagne  over  two  hundred  years  old,  whereas 
as  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  probably  younger  than  Roland. 
The  epic  loves  the  contrast  between  the  venerable  king, 
his  beard  sweeping  like  a  mass  of  white  flowers  over 
his  breast,  and  the  sturdy  and  impetuous  young  hero, 
and  so  it  rearranges  history  for  the  sake  of  that  effect. 
These  changes,  we  must  remember,  are  due  not  to  the 
caprice  of  an  individual  author,  but  to  the  imagination 
of  many  different  men,  who  have  altered  the  story,  not 
in  writing,  with  a  view  to  literary  effect,  but  orally,  with 
the  aim  of  making  the  whole  more  heroic,  more  worthy 
to  celebrate  a  great  hero  sprung  from  a  mighty  race. 
The  traditions  of  still  earlier  times  than  the  reign  of 
Charlemagne  may  have  assisted  in  this  development ; 
an  occurrence  in  the  reign  of  Dagobert,  in  which  a  Frank- 
ish  army  appears  to  have  been  surprised  in  the  passes  of 
the  Pyrenees,  may  well  have  been  fused  in  the  popular 
imagination  with  the  recollection  of  the  disaster  at 
Roncesvalles.  But  more  important  than  such  shadowy 
reminiscences  of  forgotten  days  are  the  elaborations 
made  in  the  centuries  following.  The  fascination  of  the 
wild  mountain  scenery,  the  treacherous  attack,  the  des- 
perate defense  against  a  dangerous  foe,  the  heroism 


72  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

of  warriors  faithful  to  their  trust,  have  inspired  altera- 
tions which  are  magnificent,  yet  seldom  grandiose. 
Everything  has  been  represented  as  of  heroic  propor- 
tions, that  it  may  be  in  keeping  with  the  heroism  of  the 
action.  There  is  a  certain  large  simplicity  about  it  all, 
which  prevents  exaggeration  from  degenerating  into 
grotesqueness.  Yet,  as  in  so  much  popular  poetry, — the 
ballads,  for  example,  —  there  is  little  variety  of  descrip- 
tion; the  same  conventional  terms /are  repeatedly  ap- 
plied to  various  persons  or  situations.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  '  Roland '  worthy  to  stand  beside  the  lines  in '  Beo- 
wulf which  portray  the  horror  of  the  haunted  mere  in 
the  forest  where  Grendel  and  his  dam  abide.  The 
French  epic,  though  far  later  in  date,  is  really  far  more 
archaic  in  style,  far  less  touched  with  romantic  imagina- 
tion. 

A  story  such  as  this  could  not,  of  course,  end  with  the 
defeat  of  the  French ;  it  would  have  been  intolerable  to 
leave  the  enemy  in  full  satisfaction  of  their  treasonable 
victory.  So  the  third  and  concluding  section  narrates 
the  swift  and  terrible  vengeance  of  Charlemagne,  who 
turns  back  the  moment  that  he  hears  the  horn  of  Ro- 
land reechoing  in  the  distant  mountain  passes.  A 
miracle  is  wrought  for  him ;  the  sun  stays  its  course  in  the 
heavens  that  he  may  have  light  to  overtake  the  Saracens. 
First  he  annihilates  such  of  them  as  he  can  find,  and  then 
meets  the  greater  host  of  the  pagans  and  their  allies. 
This  is  no  unequal  combat,  the  fighting  is  long-continued, 
but  the  pagans  are  finally  routed,  and  their  king,  Mar- 
silie,  dies  miserably  of  grief.  Saragossa  is  taken,  and 
the  Emperor  returns  to  France.  Ganelon  the  traitor  is 
tried,  and  after  a  judicial  duel,  is  condemned  to  death. 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  73 

Terrible  is  his  end ;  wild  horses  tear  him  limb  from  limb, 
his  bright  blood  flows  out  over  the  green  grass.  A 
strange  contrast  is  this  to  the  opening  scene,  the  orchard 
decorated  with  white  silk  spread  on  the  grass  beneath 
the  trees,  and  filled  with  a  joyous  and  noble  company, 
suspecting  no  evil.  Now,  at  the  end  of  the  poem, 
many  a  goodly  knight  has  fallen,  sorrow  and  mourning 
fill  the  court,  and  the  warriors  who  remain  stand  with 
stern  faces  and  watch  the  bloody  epilog  to  the  tragedy. 

It  is  not  enough  that  the  defeat  of  the  French  in  the 
pass  of  Roncesvalles  should  be  ascribed  to  superior 
numbers ;  popular  imagination  has  further  explained  it 
as  due  to  treachery.  It  is  easy  to  see,  however,  that  this 
must  be  very  carefully  managed,  or  else  it  will  appear 
that  the  French  are  a  race  who  may  easily  be  guilty  of 
treason,  a  worse  reproach  than  being  defeated  in  battle. 
Much  depends  upon  the  motive  which  prompts  the  trai- 
tor Ganelon  to  betray  the  French.  As  we  have  seen, 
this  motive  is  undoubtedly,  in  the  main,  hatred  of  Ro- 
land. No  explanation  of  this  dislike  is  necessary; 
it  is  one  of  the  constantly  recurring  motives  of  popular 
story.  We  all  remember  how  many  crimes  were  com- 
mitted in  fairy-tales  by  the  stepmother,  the  wicked 
stepmother,  as  she  is  commonly  called.  Roland  is 
meant  to  have  the  sympathy  in  this  tale,  just  as  step- 
children always  do.  But  the  fault  does  not  seem  to  be 
all  on  Ganelon's  side.  It  is  clear  that  Roland  has  no 
love  for  his  stepfather,  and  he  certainly  shows  his  dis- 
trust in  an  unmistakable  way.  In  the  council  he  mocks 
him  with  stinging  words,  and  he  proposes  him  for  the 
dangerous  mission  to  the  Saracen  court.  It  is  hard  to 
believe  that  Roland's  motive  was  to  do  honor  to  his 


74  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

mother's  husband.  At  all  events,  Ganelon  thinks  that 
Roland  desires  to  get  rid  of  him,  and  so  plans,  by  de- 
stroying the  rear-guard,  to  avenge  himself  on  his  stepson. 
It  seems  likely,  however,  that  in  some  forms  of  the 
story  the  treason  of  Ganelon  may  have  been  attributed 
to  avarice.  He  is  magnificently  rewarded  by  the  pagan 
king ;  each  year  he  is  to  have  ten  mules  laden  with  the 
finest  gold  of  Arabia.  On  the  battlefield  Roland  ex- 
claims to  Oliver,  "Sir  comrade,  thou  didst  speak  the 
truth  in  saying  that  Ganelon  hath  betrayed  us,  and  hath 
received,  as  a  reward  for  this,  gold  and  silver  and  mer- 
chandise." And  again  he  says,  "King  Marsilie  hath 
bought  and  sold  us."  It  must  be  remembered  that  a 
story  like  this,  circulating  among  the  people  in  oral  form, 
told  over  and  over  again,  was  so  much  altered  in  the 
course  of  time  that  even  the  motivation  of  the  events 
might  be  altered  too.  So  the  treason  of  Ganelon  might 
now  be  explained  as  due  to  avarice,  and  now  as  due 
to  vengeance.  Then,  when  an  epic  was  later  made  out 
of  such  tales,  both  of  these  explanations  might  be  pre- 
served. The  poet  of  the  'Song  of  Roland7  seems  to 
have  known  different  forms  of  the  story,  and  not  to 
have  hesitated  to  utilize  both,  even  though  they  ap- 
peared contradictory.  Thus  in  one  passage  he  placed 
Charlemagne's  capital  at  Aix,  and  in  another  at  Laon. 
So  he  may  well  have  taken  something  from  more  than 
one  version  of  the  story  in  explaining  the  treason  of 
Ganelon.  We  have  already  noted  a  similar  case  in 
'  Beowulf/  where  the  fight  with  the  dragon  was  attrib- 
uted now  to  the  hero's  desire  to  possess  the  hoard  of 
treasure,  and  again  to  his  resolve  to  protect  his  people 
from  a  devastating  scourge.  The  more  closely  popular 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  75 

stories  are  examined,  the  more  frequently  do  such  incon- 
sistencies as  these  appear.  Consequently  it  is  impos- 
sible to  discuss  the  motivation  in  the  'Song  of  Roland' 
as  we  should  in  a  modern  work  of  art. 

If  the  principal  motive  of  Ganelon's  treachery  in  the 
poem  as  we  read  it  to-day  is  desire  for  revenge,  does  this 
in  any  way  serve  to  excuse  the  crime  ?  Was  treason  on 
the  part  of  a  Frenchman  less  dishonorable  if  prompted 
by  vengeance?  Nowadays,  in  the  twentieth  century, 
we  should  answer  that  it  was  not ;  but  a  man  of  the 
eleventh  century  would  have  thought  differently.  In 
early  times  very  great  importance  was  attached  to  re- 
venge; it  was  no  mere  gratification  of  spite;  it  was  a 
sacred  duty,  one  of  the  most  pressing  of  all  social  obli- 
gations. Injuries  inflicted  upon  one's  own  person  or 
property,  or  upon  the  lives  or  possessions  of  his  kinsmen, 
could  be  satisfied  only  by  the  infliction  of  equal  or  greater 
damage  upon  the  guilty  party.  If  a  man  was  killed, 
the  murderer  might  settle  the  affair  with  the  dead  man's 
relatives  by  paying  them  a  sum  of  money,  otherwise  it 
was  their  duty  to  slay  him.  We  can  hardly  realize 
what  a  stain  lay  upon  family  honor  until  such  an  affair 
was  settled.  The  conflict  between  revenge  and  other 
duties  or  passions  is  of  course  one  of  the  commonest 
motives  in  early  poetry.  It  forms  the  theme  of  the  great- 
est tragedy  in  ^English  literature,  which  may  be  read,  in 
crude  but  unmistakable  form,  in  a  Latin  history  of  the 
Danes  written  only  a  little  later  than  the  present  version 
of  the  'Roland.'  The  gentle  Hamlet  and  the  boorish 
Amlethus  ultimately  are  really  one  and  the  same.  It 
was  a  peculiarly  bitter  reproach  to  the  warriors  of  Hroth- 
gar,  in  'Beowulf,'  that  they  could  not  be  avenged  upon 


76  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

Grendel  for  all  his  injuries,  nor  could  they  expect  that 
he  would  atone  for  the  death  of  their  kinsmen  by  the 
payment  of  money.  And  so  Ganelon  feels  that  he  must 
"get  even"  with  Roland.  In  the  presence  of  Charle- 
magne and  all  the  barons  he  utters  his  formal  defiance; 
he  warns  Roland,  as  it  were,  that  vengeance  is  to  follow. 

"Lord,"  said  Ganelon,  "it  is  Roland  who  has  done  all  this;  never 
again  in  my  We  shall  I  love  him,  nor  Oliver,  since  he  is  his  companion, 
nor  the  Twelve  Peers,  because  they  are  devoted  to  him.  In  thy 
sight,  Lord,  I  defy  them  all !" 

This  forms  Ganelon's  defense,  when,  at  the  end  of  the 
story,  he  is  tried  for  high  treason. 

"  I  defied  Roland  the  warrior,  and  Oliver,  and  all  their  comrades  ; 
and  Charles  and  all  his  noble  barons  were  witnesses  of  this.  I  have 
revenged  me,  but  in  that  there  is  no  treason." 

Thus,  according  to  the  customs  of  the  time,  Ganelon  was, 
in  one  sense,  acting  within  his  rights.  At  his  trial  the 
barons  are  even  disposed  to  pardon  him,  but  Charle- 
magne is  anxious  for  his  conviction,  because  Roland  is 
his  nephew,  his  blood-relation,  and  he  must  have  ven- 
geance upon  his  murderer.  This  desire  is  at  length  sat- 
isfied ;  one  of  the  barons  points  out  that  Ganelon  is  a 
traitor  because  he  has  broken  his  oath  of  allegiance  to  the 
Emperor,  a  more  binding  obligation  than  the  duty  of 
compassing  personal  revenge. 

"Whatever  wrong  Roland  may  have  done  to  6anelon,  he  was  in 
thy  service,  and  that  should  have  afforded  him  protection.  Gane- 
lon is  a  felon  in  that  he  has  betrayed  him,  and  hath  broken  his 
oath  unto  thee,  and  hath  done  evil.  And  therefore  I  vote  for  his 
death ;  let  him  be  hanged,  and  let  his  body  be  cast  out  to  the  dogs 
as  that  of  a  felon  and  a  traitor.  If  any  kinsman  he  hath  who  will 
give  me  the  lie  in  this,  I  stand  ready  to  defend  my  judgment  with 
the  sword  which  I  have  girded  here  at  my  side." 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  77 

And  so,  in  accordance  with  the  medieval  fashion  of 
deciding  points  of  law  by  fighting  them  out,  in  the  belief 
that  God  will  make  the  right  side  victorious,  a  judicial 
duel  between  one  of  Ganelon's  kinsmen  and  a  cham- 
pion of  Charlemagne  takes  place.  Ganelon's  guilt  is 
established  by  the  defeat  of  his  defender,  so  he  is  put 
to  death,  and  his  kinsmen  with  him.  Thus,  in  this 
epic  which  exalts  the  virtue  of  the  French,  the  treason 
of  Ganelon  is  partially  excused.  He  is  a  traitor,  but  his 
crime  is  mitigated  by  the  fact  that  he  has  been  obliged 
to  choose  between  conflicting  duties,  —  the  satisfaction 
of  vengeance  and  allegiance  to  the  Emperor. 

The  tragedy  in  the  pass  of  Roncesvalles  is  thus,  in 
the  last  analysis,  partly  the  fault  of  Roland  himself. 
Had  he  not  uttered  insulting  words  to  his  stepfather, 
had  he  not  proposed  him  for  a  dangerous  and  possibly 
fatal  mission,  Ganelon's  dreadful  revenge  would  never 
have  been  planned.  Even  granting  that  he  had  no 
sinister  motive  in  suggesting  Ganelon  as  ambassador  to 
the  Saracens,  his  act  points  to  the  same  fatal  defect  in 
his  character  which  leads  him  to  dismiss  all  prudence 
in  the  face  of  danger.  His  reckless  impetuosity  always 
carries  him  away ;  his  resolution  soars  so  high  that  he 
never  stops  to  think  of  consequences.  In  the  most 
extreme  danger  he  scorns  to  sound  his  horn  for  aid, 
preferring  to  sacrifice  many  lives  to  a  rather  theatrical 
heroism.  Such  reckless  bravado  was,  of  course,  a 
tradition  of  the  age,  as  it  is  more  or  less  of  all  ages  in 
which  military  achievement  is  the  controlling  ideal. 
Germanic  warriors  went  to  certain  death,  even  when 
no  great  end  was  to  be  gained  thereby,  rather  than 
compromise  with  valor  for  the  sake  of  safety.  The 


78  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

Niblungs,  though  forewarned,  faring  to  the  court  of 
Attila,  or  the  kinsmen  of  Signy  accepting  the  treacherous 
invitation  of  King  Siggeir,  were  doing  no  more  than 
flesh  and  blood  heroes  were  wont  to  do.  Hamthir  and 
Sorli  press  alone  into  the  halls  of  Eormanric,  and  perish 
with  the  words,  "What  though  we  die?  Glory  awaits 
us  !"  There  is  much  about  Roland  that  recalls  Shak- 
spere's  Hotspur,  —  a  figure  which  has  a  fascination, 
in  its  complete  abandon  to  heroic  impulse,  which  is 
somewhat  lacking  in  the  more  cautious  Prince  Hal. 
But  it  is  noteworthy  that  in  the  '  Song  of  Roland '  the 
claims  of  reason  and  common-sense  are  given  a  chance 
against  splendid  and  reckless  folly.  These  are  repre- 
sented in  the  person  of  Oliver,  Roland's  friend  and  com- 
panion in  arms.  He  is  as  brave  as  Roland,  but  of  better 
balanced  character;  he  stops  to  think.  The  poem 
contrasts  the  two  in  a  pithy  phrase :  "Roland  is  brave, 
and  Oliver  is  wise."  Oliver  is  only  a  secondary  figure, 
he  is  by  no  means  the  perfect  embodiment  of  valor 
which  we  see  in  Roland,  and  he  pales  before  the  glory 
of  his  more  illustrious  comrade.  But  Oliver  points  out 
that  Roland's  blind  heroism  and  reckless  striving  for 
honor  may  result  in  actual  dishonor.  When  both  are 
far  spent  on  the  battlefield,  Oliver  exclaims:  — 

"Comrade,  the  fault  is  thine.  Wise  valor  is  not  rashness,  and 
prudence  is  better  than  recklessness.  Through  thine  imprudence 
the  French  have  met  their  end ;  nevermore  can  we  render  service 
unto  Charles  the  King.  Hadst  thou  hearkened  unto  me,  he  would 
have  come,  and  we  should  have  won  this  battle,  and  King  Marsilie 
would  have  been  killed  or  captured.  O  Roland,  an  evil  thing  hath 
thy  prowess  been  for  us  !  Charles  the  Great  shall  nevermore  have 
assistance  from  thee,  and  never  until  the  day  of  doom  will  there  be 
another  man  such  as  thou  art.  Die  thou  must,  and  France  shall 
thereby  be  put  to  shame" 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  79 

In  order  fully  to  appreciate  the  spirit  of  the  poem, 
we  must  look  with  particular  care  at  Charlemagne. 
He  is,  in  a  sense,  an  imaginary  monarch,  he  is  idealized 
out  of  all  historical  reality,  but  these  very  idealizations 
represent  the  conception  of  kingship  in  the  minds  of 
the  people.  He  is  first  of  all  majestic,  his  whole  pres- 
ence breathes  authority;  he  has  the  dignity  of  great  age, 
symbolized  by  the  white  beard  which  flows  over  his 
breast.  He  has  been  a  mighty  warrior,  having  subdued 
most  of  the  kingdoms  of  earth,  so  that  he  represents, 
in  the  second  place,  kingly  valor.  He  is  politically 
supreme,  but  he  does  not  use  his  power  despotically. 
In  councils  he  has  the  deciding  voice,  but  his  barons 
advise  rather  than  legislate;  "he  wishes  to  do  nothing 
without  those  of  France."  In  the  greater  council  or 
court  of  justice  which  tries  Ganelon  for  high  treason 
he  is  only  the  presiding  officer.  He  is  head  of  the 
Church  as  well  as  of  the  State ;  not  only  sovereign  but 
patriarch.  He  has  direct  communication  with  Heaven, 
and  is  protected  by  a  special  guardian  angel.  <  And  yet, 
despite  his  imposing  personality,  there  is  a  pathos  about 
his  figure.  In  his  old  age  he  is  obliged  to  lose  the 
bravest  of  his  warriors  in  the  disaster  at  Roncesvalles, 
and  even  after  he  has  avenged  the  slain,  he  has  little 
peace.  The  poem  opens  with  his  triumph;  it  ends  with 
his  despair.  As  soon  as  the  execution  of  Ganelon  is 
over,  he  is  summoned  to  aid  the  Christians  in  a  distant 
land. 

The  king  lies  down  to  sleep  in  his  vaulted  chamber.  But  St. 
Gabriel  comes  to  him  from  God  and  says  to  him,  "  Charles,  collect 
the  armies  of  thine  empire,  and  go  in  full  power  into  the  land  of 
Eire,  and  aid  King  Vivien  at  Imphe,  at  the  city  which  the  pagans 


80  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

have  besieged ;  the  Christians  call  unto  thee  for  succor."  The  Em- 
peror would  fain  not  have  gone.  "  Ah  God  ! "  he  cries,  "how  full  of 
troubles  is  my  life  !"  And  he  weeps,  and  plucks  his  white  beard. 

The  very  sorrows  which  afflict  Charlemagne  make  him 
still  more  impressive.  He  stands  in  lonely  grandeur,  — 
the  incarnation  of  imperial  piety,  valor,  and  dominion. 
The  'Song  of  Roland '  was  shaped  by  the  hands  of 
many  men;  it  was  the  work  of  the  French  people  in 
different  parts  of  the  country,  not  in  one  district  alone; 
it  is  truly  a  national  epic.  It  appears  to  have  been 
influenced  only  in  a  small  degree,  if  at  all,  by  ecclesias- 
tics, and  yet  no  saint's  life,  no  Bible  story,  shows  greater 
religious  fervor.  "For  God  and  sweet  France!77  — 
this  is  the  cry  which  rings  through  it  all,  and  even  sweet 
France  takes  the  second  place.  But  it  unites  very 
closely  both  patriotic  and  religious  conceptions.  It 
proclaims  not  only  that  all  Frenchmen  are  Christians, 
but  also  that  all  Christians  are  Frenchmen.  As  the 
poet  of  another  old  song  says:  — 

The  crown  of  France  must  be  exalted, 

For  all  other  kings  should  be  subject  to  it,  — 

All  such  as  believe  in  God  and  the  law  of  Christendom. 

The  old  Germanic  belief  was  that  you  ought  to  fight 
your  neighbors,  and  if  necessary  exterminate  them, 
for  the  glory  of  arms.  The  belief  of  the  French  in  the 
'  Song  of  Roland '  is  that  you  ought  to  exterminate 
them  anyhow,  provided  they  are  not  Christians,  and 
if  they  are  you  ought  to  annex  them.  The  matter 
is  very  simple.  "  Christians  are  right,  and  pagans  are 
wrong/7  says  the  poet.  So  the  wars  in  the  ' Roland' 
are  really  religious  contests,  like  the  Crusades,  and  the 
epic,  with  its  intense  and  narrow  piety,  makes  us  under- 


.     THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  81 

stand  the  fanatical  enthusiasm  which  inspired  expedi- 
tions to  the  Holy  Land.  It  points  forward  to  the  First 
Crusade,  which  took  place  not  long  after  the  poem 
assumed  its  present  shape.  Its  religion  suggests  rather 
a  primitive  type  of  Christianity,  —  God  is  a  kind  of 
heavenly  Charlemagne,  a  being  not  unlike  the  Emperor, 
only  still  more  remote  and  powerful.  Yet  the  God 
of  Roland  is  not  really  so  far  off  as  the  God  of  Beowulf. 
In  the  Anglo-Saxon  epic,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Deity 
interferes  little  in  the  main  action,  and  the  issue  is 
decided  by  the  strength  of  the  hero.  But  the  God  of 
Charlemagne  is  willing  to  stop  the  very  sun  in  the  heav- 
ens for  the  benefit  of  the  French.  This  Beowulf  would 
have  considered  an  unsportsmanlike  advantage;  he 
always  fought  fair,  even  against  demons.  But  he  was 
only  vaguely  pious,  whereas  the  French  warriors  are 
completely  and  sincerely  devoted  to  the  service  of  their 
God. 

Women  play  but  a  small  part  in  this  heroic  story. 
The  soldiers  returning  from  the  wars  think  of  their 
wives  and  sweethearts,  but  Roland  quite  forgets  the 
lovely  Aude,  his  affianced  bride,  the  sister  of  Oliver. 
She  does  not  forget  him,  however.  The  moment  that 
the  Emperor  returns  to  his  capital,  she  runs  to  him  to 
hear  news  of  Roland. 

The  Emperor  returns  from  Spain  and  comes  to  Aix,  the  fairest 
city  of  France;  he  enters  the  palace  and  advances  into  the  great  hall. 
Unto  him  comes  Aude,  a  damsel  radiant  in  beauty,  who  says  to 
him,  "  Where  is  Roland  the  captain,  who  hath  plighted  me  his  troth 
to  take  me  as  his  wife  ?  "  Charles  is  filled  with  sorrow  and  grief, 
he  weeps,  and  plucks  his  white  beard.  "  Sister,  sweet  friend,  thou 
askest  me  of  a  dead  man.  But  in  exchange  for  Roland  will  I  give 
thee  Louis,  a  better  know  I  not  in  France.  My  son  he  is,  and  will 

Q 


82  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

govern  my  dominions."  Aude  answers,  "  Strange  are  thy  words; 
may  it  not  please  God  or  his  saints  or  angels  that  I  should  live  after 
Roland's  death !  "  The  color  fades  from  her  face,  she  falls  at  the 
feet  of  Charlemagne,  she  is  dead !  May  God  have  mercy  on  her 
soul ! 

Bramimonde,  the  Saracen  queen,  is  a  devoted  wife ; 
not  a  lovely  fragile  flower,  like  Aude,  but  able  to  speak 
her  mind  vigorously  on  occasion.  Her  soul  was  worth 
saving;  at  first  she  refused  to  accept  Christianity,  but 
"  having  heard  many  sermons  and  examples/7  was  at 
length  won  over.  In  the  chansons  de  geste  ladies  gener- 
ally get  more  consideration  than  their  lords  and  masters, 
and  are  given  a  chance  to  embrace  the  true  faith,  and 
live  happily  ever  after,  sometimes  as  the  brides  of  their 
conquerors.  But  in  this  poem,  which  was  unaffected  by 
the  development  of  romantic  conventions,  the  presence 
of  women  arouses  little  interest,  and  has  little  effect  on 
the  dramatic  action.  The  love-element  has  not  yet  be- 
come vital  in  heroic  narrative.  It  has  indeed  been  con- 
jectured that  the  whole  episode  dealing  [with  Aude  is 
really  extraneous,  possibly  a  separate  lyric  which  has 
been  worked  into  the  fabric  of  the  epic,  and  which 
reveals  its  incongruity  with  the  spirit  of  the  poem  as  a 
whole. 

Like  ' Beowulf/  the  'Song  of  Roland'  glorifies  the 
ruling  aristocracy.  Royal  and  noble  personages  are 
again  the  actors,  and  little  attention  is  paid  to  those  of 
inferior  rank.  The  people  are  vaguely  in  the  back- 
ground, but  their  fortunes  arouse  no  interest.  Twenty 
thousand  French  perish  in  the  defiles  of  the  Pyrenees, 
but  the  common  soldiers  are  almost  completely  disre- 
garded. The  epic  avoids  whatever  is  not  magnificent, 


THE  SONG  OF  ROLAND  83 

—  even  in  describing  the  four  hundred  thousand  pagans, 
it  mentions  only  "  counts  and  viscounts,  dukes  and 
almagurs  and  emirs  and  sons  of  counts.7'  Only  rarely 
do  the  lower  classes  make  their  appearance,  as  when, 
in  a  passage  of  rough  humor,  the  cooks  of  Charlemagne's 
kitchen  amuse  themselves  by  tormenting  the  unhappy 
Ganelon,  who  has  been  given  into  their  charge.  But 
even  then  there  must  be  no  less  than  a  hundred  of  them  ! 
When  we  compare  the  poem  carefully  with  what  has 
gone  before,  we  cannot  but  feel  a  change  in  the  relations 
of  men  to  each  other.  While  there  is  not  yet  the  in- 
tense caste-feeling  of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  there  is 
less  of  the  democratic  spirit  about  this  society  than 
about  that  described  in  ' Beowulf.'  Rank  has  assumed 
added  importance,  and  pride  of  birth  shows  signs  of  its 
later  transformation  into  the  intolerance  of  the  fully 
developed  system  of  chivalry. 

"The  chansons  de  geste  are  fine  specimens  of  fighting 
Christianity,"  says  Lowell,  "but  who  after  reading  them 
— even  the  best  of  them,  the  'Song  of  Roland' — can  re- 
member much  more  than  a  cloud  of  battle-dust,  through 
which  the  paladins  loom  dimly  gigantic,  and  a  strong 
verse  flashes  here  and  there  like  an  angry  sword?"  — 
Do  we  gain  no  more  definite  impression  than  this  from 
the  '  Song  of  Roland '  ?  May  we  not  carry  away  with 
us  a  vision  of  a  people  for  whom  fighting  was  indeed 
still  the  chief  business  of  life,  but  who  had  progressed 
far  enough  to  feel  the  beauty  of  devotion  to  a  national 
ideal  and  of  submission  to  a  beneficent  God  ?  With  all 
his  headstrong  impetuosity,  with  all  his  forgetfulness 
of  consequences,  Roland  is  far  more  unselfish  than  the 
warrior  of  Germanic  times.  His  very  folly  springs 


84  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

from  his  own  eager  desire  to  advance  the  interests  of  his 
native  country  and  to  reflect  glory  upon  his  kin,  as 
much  as  from  his  own  warlike  disposition.  From  the 
lips  of  the  French  hero  might  well  have  come  the 
words  which  Macaulay  made  Horatius  utter :  — 

To  every  man  upon  this  earth 

Death  cometh  soon  or  late; 
And  how  can  man  die  better 

Than  facing  fearful  odds, 
For  the  ashes  of  his  fathers 

And  the  temples  of  his  gods  ? 

This  broader  vision,  this  consecration  to  a  higher 
ideal  of  Church  and  State,  which  is  the  animating  force 
behind  all  the  tumult  and  carnage  at  Roncesvalles,  and 
of  which  the  heroism  of  Roland  is  the  symbol,  was  not 
the  least  of  those  elements  in  the  French  character 
which,  in  spite  of  much  that  was  selfish  and  sordid, 
quickened  the  life  of  the  English  into  new  vigor  after 
the  Conquest,  and  made  possible  their  later  achieve- 
ment in  the  years  to  come. 


IV 
THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES 


I  was  first  of  all  the  kings  who  drew 
The  knighthood-errant  of  this  realm  and  all 
The  realms  together  under  me,  their  Head, 
In  that  fair  Order  of  my  Table  Round, 
A  glorious  company,  the  flower  of  men, 
To  serve  as  model  for  the  mighty  world, 
And  be  the  fair  beginning  of  a  time. 
I  made  them  lay  their  hands  in  mine  and  swear 
To  reverence  the  King,  as  if  he  were 
Their  conscience,  and  their  conscience  as  their  King, 
To  break  the  heathen  and  uphold  the  Christ, 
To  ride  abroad  redressing  human  wrongs, 
To  speak  no  slander,  no,  nor  listen  to  it, 
To  honor  his  own  word  as  if  his  God's, 
To  lead  sweet  lives  in  purest  chastity, 
To  love  one  maiden  only,  cleave  to  her, 
And  worship  her  by  years  of  noble  deeds. 

—  TENNYSON. 


IV 
THE   ARTHURIAN   ROMANCES 

IN  one  of  his  most  whimsical  moments,  Mark  Twain 
conceived  the  idea  of  placing  a  Connecticut  Yankee 
at  the  court  of  King  Arthur,  and  contrasting  New  Eng- 
land shrewdness  and  common-sense  with  medieval 
credulity  and  superstition.  This  daring  bit  of  fancy 
he  elaborated  with  inimitable  humor.  We  all  remem- 
ber how  the  Yankee  appeared  at  a  tournament  clad  in 
the  lightest  of  acrobatic  attire,  and  then  lassooed  the 
iron-clad  knights  and  pulled  them  off  their  horses  in 
clattering  heaps,  how  he  discomfited  Merlin  by  a  liberal 
use  of  gunpowder,  and  saved  himself  from  the  stake 
by  some  remarkable  astronomical  calculations  about  an 
eclipse.  Most  ingenious,  too,  were  his  methods  of 
calling  attention  to  the  merits  of  Persimmons's  soap 
and  Peterson's  prophylactic  tooth-brush.  But  while 
Mark  Twain  puts  us  in  the  best  of  humor  by  his  fun, 
and  arouses  our  interest  by  vivid  and  unconventional 
descriptions  of  Arthur  and  Guinevere  and  Launcelot 
and  Kay  and  other  worthies  of  the  couft,  he  is  really 
bent  on  showing  quite  a  different  side  of  the  picture. 
The  Yankee  looks  about  in  the  king's  dominions,  and 
sees  poverty  and  squalor  and  suffering  among  the 
common  people,  cruelty  and  injustice  in  the  great  noble- 
men and  heroes,  wretchedness  and  vice  beneath  all  the 
glitter  of  the  Round  Table  fellowship.  The  domain 

87 


88  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

of  King  Arthur  is  made  the  symbol  of  the  social  short- 
comings of  the  Middle  Ages.  At  the  very  beginning 
of  the  story,  the  author  reveals  his  true  purpose.  The 
Yankee  goes  up  to  Camelot  as  the  prisoner  of  Sir  Kay 
the  Seneschal :  — 

As  we  approached  the  town,  signs  of  life  began  to  appear.  At 
intervals  we  passed  a  wretched  cabin,  with  a  thatched  roof,  and 
about  it  small  fields  and  garden  patches  in  an  indifferent  state  of 
cultivation.  There  were  people,  too ;  brawny  men,  with  long,  coarse, 
uncombed  hair  that  hung  down  over  their  faces  and  made  them  look 
like  animals.  They  and  the  women,  as  a  rule,  wore  a  coarse  tow- 
linen  robe  that  came  well  below  the  knee,  and  a  rude  sort  of  sandals, 
and  many  wore  an  iron  collar.  ...  In  the  town  were  some  sub- 
stantial windowless  houses  of  stone  scattered  among  a  wilderness 
of  thatched  cabins;  the  streets  were  mere  crooked  alleys,  and 
unpaved;  troops  of  dogs  and  nude  children  played  in  the  sun 
and  made  life  and  noise;  hogs  roamed  and  rooted  contentedly 
about,  and  one  of  them  lay  in  a  reeking  wallow  in  the  middle 
of  the  main  thoroughfare  and  suckled  her  family.  Presently 
there  was  a  distant  blare  of  military  music;  it  came  nearer,  still 
nearer,  and  soon  a  noble  cavalcade  wound  into  view,  glorious  with 
plumed  helmets  and  flashing  mail  and  flaunting  banners  and  rich 
doublets  and  horse-cloths  and  gilded  spear-heads ;  and  through  the 
muck  and  swine,  and  naked  brats,  and  joyous  dogs,  and  shabby  huts 
it  took  its  gallant  way,  and  in  its  wake  we  followed.  Followed 
through  one  winding  alley  and  then  another,  —  and  climbing,  always 
climbing  —  till  at  last  we  gained  the  breezy  height  where  the  huge 
castle  stood.  There  was  an  exchange  of  bugle  blasts ;  then  a  parley 
from  the  walls,  where  men-at-arms  in  hauberk  and  morion  marched 
back  and  forth  with  halberd  at  shoulder  under  flapping  banners 
with  the  rude  figure  of  a  dragon  displayed  upon  them ;  and  then  the 
great  gates  were  flung  open,  the  drawbridge  was  lowered,  and  the 
head  of  the  cavalcade  swept  forward  under  the  frowning  arches. 

The  sympathies  of  Mark  Twain  were  always  profoundly 
stirred  by  injustice  and  inhumanity,  and  he  seldom 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  89 

dealt  with  bygone  ages  without  reminding  us  of  the 
misery  of  the  unfortunate  and  the  oppressed.  'The 
Prince  and  the  Pauper '  is  almost  as  much  an  exposure 
of  social  conditions  under  Edward  VI  as  it  is  a  story ; 
'Joan  of  Arc'  is  full  of  pity  for  a  noble  woman  strug- 
gling against  overwhelming  odds.  Mark  Twain  was 
a  great  humorist,  but  he  was  also  a  great  humani- 
tarian. 

His  picture  of  medieval  society  is  true,  in  a  sense. 
In  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  when  the  Ar- 
thurian romances  reached  their  greatest  glory,  the 
lower  classes  received  little  consideration ;  they  often 
lived  in  wretchedness,  and  trembled  under  oppression. 
The  pleasures  of  this  world  were  not  for  them,  but  rather 
its  sorrows  and  its  burdens.  This  is  really  the  era  into 
which  the  Yankee  is  transported,  this  was  the  Age  of 
Chivalry,  although  Mark  Twain  prefers  to  disguise 
it  transparently  as  the  sixth  century,  when  the  Arthur 
of  history  actually  flourished.  It  is  true,  too,  that  the 
romances,  the  amusement  and  the  expression  of  the 
upper  classes,  do  not  at  all  reflect  the  social  condition 
of  the  people  as  a  whole.  They  disregard  the  com- 
mons, in  most  cases,  even  more  completely  than  the 
'Song  of  Roland'  does.  Their  tone  is  aristocratic 
throughout.  They  reveal  the  brighter  side  of  medieval 
life,  —  love-affairs  and  tournaments  and  brilliant  mili- 
tary expeditions  and  knightly  deeds  and  romantic 
adventures,  ignoring  the  peasantry  toiling  to  pay 
tithes  and  taxes,  falling  unwept  in  battles  made  glorious 
by  their  superiors,  dying  of  pestilence,  suffering  from 
the  ravages  of  war,  or  perishing  miserably  of  famine. 
Such  things  as  these  Mark  Twain  has  chosen  to  bring 


90  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

vividly  before  us,  casting  a  heavy  shadow  over  the  bright- 
ness and  beauty  of  Arthurian  romance. 

Yet  the  serious  parts  of  his  book  are,  I  believe,  pro- 
foundly misleading,  despite  the  generosity  of  feeling 
which  has  inspired  them  and  the  facts  which  may  be 
advanced  to  support  them.  When  the  humorist  lays 
aside  his  cap  and  bells,  and  becomes  the  moralist,  when 
he  uses  the  Arthurian  romances  as  illustrations  of  the 
defective  social  consciousness  of  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
he  mistakes  the  true  character  of  these  romances,  and 
forgets  the  spirit  which  really  underlies  them.  They 
voice  the  sentiments  of  a  single  class  of  society,  indeed, 
but  one  which,  with  all  its  faults,  was  slowly  progressing 
towards  finer  issues,  —  the  gentleness,  generosity,  and 
reverence  for  women,  which  were  lacking  in  the  Heroic 
Age./ It  is  their  idealism  which  has  given  the  Arthurian 
legends,  in  part  at  least,  their  wonderful  vitality,  making 
the  story  of  the  Round  Table  heroes  the  most  popular 
of  all  the  romantic  narratives  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
attracting  in  modern  times  poets  so  unlike  as  Spenser 
and  Tennyson.  Even  Milton,  we  remember,  seriously 
considered  making  King  Arthur  the  bearer  of  the  mes- 
sage which  later  came  in  the  pages  of  'Paradise  Lost/ 
We  cannot  afford  to  underestimate  the  literature  of 
idealism.  It  is  a  trite  saying  that  a  period  must  be 
judged  not  alone  by  literature  which  depicts  things  as 
they  are,  but  also  by  that  which  depicts  things  as  men 
would  fain  have  them.  The  plays  of  Shakspere  are  a 
truer  guide  to  the  spirit  of  Elizabethan  England  than  is 
contemporary  history;  the  French  Revolution  is  illu- 
minated by  the  works  of  the  poets  and  novelists  of  the  day 
as  much  as  by  documentary  annals ;  More's  'Utopia'  is 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  91 

hardly  less  history  than  Bacon's  '  Henry  the  Seventh.' 
So  it  is  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  Arthurian  romance  is  the 
'Utopia'  of  chivalry.  It  is  unreal  and  fantastic ;  but  it 
represents  a  definite  ideal  of  conduct.  It  even  contains, 
as  we  shall  observe  later,  the  beginnings  of  humanita- 
rianism.  Mark  Twain  failed  to  see,  then,  that  he  was 
selecting  as  an  illustration  of  the  degradation  of  the 
times  a  story  which  was  really  the  herald  of  better  con- 
ditions, and  that  in  reproaching  the  Arthurian  knights 
for  lack  of  human  sympathy  he  was  overlooking  those 
very  efforts  to  establish  finer  social  ideals,  which,  first 
manifested  by  the  members  of  the  ruling  aristocratic 
class  in  their  relations  with  each  other,  were  in  time  ex- 
tended to  those  of  lower  social  station. 

The  adventures  of  Arthur  and  his  knights  were  pe- 
culiarly adapted  to  become  the  concrete  expression  of 
chivalric  ideals,  since  they  were  almost  wholly  the  prod- 
uct of  imagination.  In  this  regard  they  form  a  strong 
contrast  to  the  exploits  of  Roland  and  Charlemagne. 
What  the  " matter  of  France"  shows  directly  and  real- 
istically, the  " matter  of  Britain"  shows  indirectly  and 
symbolically.  In  the  representation  of  a  perfect  sys- 
tem of  knighthood,  Arthurian  romance  is  undisturbed 
by  intruding  facts  of  contemporary  politics.  Charle- 
magne, despite  all  the  fantasy  and  exaggeration  with 
which  his  figure  has  been  surrounded,  is  nevertheless 
always  the  sovereign  of  a  real  empire,  the  ruler  of  France. 
His  deeds  and  those  of  his  knights  are  to  a  considerable 
extent  founded  on  fact,  and  they  are  perhaps  none  the 
less  a  part  of  the  history  of  France  because  the  French 
people  have  altered  them  to  suit  their  own  conceptions. 
Roland  and  Oliver  were  born  of  national  struggle  and 


92  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

exalted  by  patriotic  pride,  and  they  still  belonged  to 
the  people  at  the  time  of  their  greatest  glory  in  the  'Song 
of  Roland/  Three  centuries  after  his  death,  Charle- 
magne could  stand  as  representative  of  the  French  crown, 
even  though  its  struggles  were  then  against  baronial 
power  at  home  rather  than  against  foes  abroad.  His 
name  and  fame  were  still  supreme  in  spite  of  changed 
political  conditions.  For,  in  their  eagerness  to  defend 
his  rebellious  barons,  poets  of  the  later  day  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  charge  him  with  oppressions  and  iniquities.  He 
was  frequently  humiliated  in  the  chansons  de  geste  in 
order  that  such  insurgent  heroes  as  Girart  of  Vienna 
might  be  exalted.  In  short,  he  was  real  enough,  even 
after  he  had  long  been  dead,  to  be  affected  by  changes 
in  the  political  situation  in  France. 

Not  so  with  Arthur.  While  his  story  was,  like  Ro- 
land's, founded  on  stirring  events  in  the  history  of  a  na- 
tion, and  fostered  in  its  infancy  by  patriotic  pride,  it 
reached  its  fullest  development  among  foreigners,  who 
loved  it,  in  a  sense,  because  of  its  very  freedom  from 
disturbing  political  realities.  The  national  element 
quickly  faded  out ;  there  was  little  Celtic  enthusiasm  in 
the  heyday  of  Arthurian  romance.  Nor  did  it  achieve 
a  transferred  patriotism.  One  does  not  imagine  such 
a  phrase  as  "  sweet  France "  on  the  lips  of  Launcelot  or 
Bedivere.  The  great  king  himself  rules  an  imaginary 
realm ;  he  has  little  to  do  with  the  realities  of  politics, 
domestic  or  international.  As  time  goes  on,  he  gets  to 
be  more  and  more  a  shadowy  and  passive  figure,  and 
the  glory  of  other  heroes  sitting  at  the  Round  Table  dims 
the  brightness  of  his  own  renown.  But  they  are  not 
essentially  different  from  him ;  Tristram  and  Perceval 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  93 

and  Gawain  and  the  rest  exist  not  to  deliver  the 
people  of  Britain  from  their  enemies,  but  to  rescue 
ladies  and  kill  monsters,  and  to  undergo  wonderful 
adventures  in  love  and  war.  They  are  warriors  of  fairy- 
land, half  enveloped  in  a  golden  haze  of  unreality.  The 
ugly  things  of  life  occasionally  intrude ;  but  the  treason 
of  Mordred  or  the  unfaithfulness  of  Guinevere  spring 
from  no  necessity  of  rationalizing  or  explaining  histori- 
cal events,  as  in  the  case  of  the  treachery  of  Ganelon, 
which  is  made  to  motivate  the  slaughter  at  Roncesvalles. 
It  is  unsafe,  too,  to  attribute  to  such  episodes  a  mytho- 
logical origin.  Arthur,  who  may  fitly  stand  as  represent- 
ative of  his  whole  court,  is  king  of  dreams  and  monarch 
of  fantasy.  His  miraculous  translation  to  Avalon  is  the 
only  end  possible  for  a  career  more  suggestive  of  the 
otherworld  than  of  a  land  of  sordid  realities.  He  is  an 
ideal,  "  Arthur,  flower  of  kings,"  as  Joseph  of  Exeter 
called  him,  and  the  stories  grouped  around  his  name  are 
really  as  imaginary  as  fairy-tales. 

Arthurian  romance  is  like  a  gorgeous  tapestry,  woven 
of  many  threads,  and  colored  with  many  dyes.  Some 
of  the  materials  have  come  from  distant  countries,  — 
here  a  bit  of  gold  from  the  Orient,  there  a  homespun 
strand  of  popular  story,  but  the  warp  is  Celtic  and  the 
woof  is  French.  Much  of  the  embroidery,  too,  is  Celtic, 
and  it  is  the  Celtic  coloring  which  gives  the  whole  much 
of  its  charm,  but,  in  vivid  contrast  to  this,  French 
workers  have  so  disposed  their  own  brilliant  hues  as 
to  give  harmony  to  a  design,  which,  though  striking, 
was  in  the  beginning  crude  and  archaic.  The  web  and 
the  embroidery  were  long  in  the  making,  —  the  longer, 
because  so  much  was  unraveled  to  make  room  for  newer 


94  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

patterns,  and  because  old  designs  were  constantly  elabo- 
rated afresh.  We  shall  be  mainly  concerned  here  with 
the  form  which  the  romances  assumed  during  the  three 
centuries  following  the  'Song  of  Roland ';  that  is  to  say, 
from  the  Norman  Conquest  to  the  age  of  Chaucer. 
Even  within  this  period  changes  are  many,  consistency 
is  often  lacking,  absurdities  and  exaggerations  creep  in. 
Chaucer  ridiculed  the  artificiality  of  the  romances,  and 
their  straining  of  probabilities,  as  in  . 

—  the  book  of  Launcelot  de  Lake, 
That  wommen  holde  in  ful  gret  reverence. 

Some  heroes  grow  more  illustrious;  some,  like  Galahad, 
appear  for  the  first  time;  and  some  are  thrust  completely 
into  the  background  by  the  prestige  of  their  newer 
rivals.  Prose  romances  run  to  wearisome  length;  artis- 
tic form  is  neglected,  or  lost  in  a  mass  of  detail.  Vulgar 
story-tellers  drag  Arthur  down  into  the  dust  of  the  high- 
way, or  make  him  the  amusement  of  coarse  wits  in  the 
ale-house.  Monkish  piety  makes  romance  a  vehicle  for 
religion,  or  allegorizes  a  thumping  moral  into  it.  Never- 
theless, in  spite  of  its  blemishes,  Arthurian  romance  at 
the  height  of  its  chivalric  period  presents  many  striking 
characteristics  which  distinguish  it  from  earlier  and 
later  conceptions.  We  shall  best  understand  these 
characteristics  if  we  first  look  at  the  origins -of  the  legend 
as  a  whole,  and  then  at  some  of  the  chief  influences 
which  have  molded  it. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  century,  the  Celtic 
peoples  in  Britain,  who  had  earlier  welcomed  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Germanic  tribes  against  their  enemies,  the 
Picts  and  Scots,  were  engaged  in  a  series  of  desperate 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  95 

struggles  to  check  the  encroachments  of  their  former 
allies.  This  was  the  era  of  the  historical  events  re- 
corded in  'Beowulf ' ;  Hygelac  was  still  king  of  the  Geats, 
and  his  disastrous  expedition  into  the  Low  Countries 
was  yet  to  be  undertaken.  The  task  of  the  Celtic 
peoples  in  attempting  to  preserve  their  liberties  and 
to  retain  their  dominions  was  not  easy.  But  in  one 
engagement,  the  Battle  of  Mons  Badonis,  or  Mount 
Badon,  they  were  temporarily  successful,  under  the 
leadership  of  a  certain  Arthur,  not  their  king,  but  the 
commander  of  their  forces.  This  victory,  though  it 
really  signified  little  for  the  ultimate  outcome  of  the 
struggle,  gave  a  tremendous  impetus  to  the  formation 
of  heroic  legends  about  the  figure  of  Arthur.  It  was 
perhaps  inevitable  that  these  legends  should  soon  be- 
come a  lament  for  a  forlorn  cause  and  a  sigh  for  a  lost 
leader.  The  Celtic  temperament  is  not  primarily  suited 
to  political  achievement.  Enthusiasm  and  imagination 
do  not  make  up  for  the  lack  of  certain  sterner  virtues 
which  lead  to  success  in  establishing  and  governing  a 
state.  Mommsen's  characterization  of  the  Celts  at  the 
time  of  their  early  contact  with  the  Romans  holds  for  the 
medieval  period  as  well.  ' '  Nature, ' '  he  says, l '  though  she 
lavished  upon  the  Celts  her  most  brilliant  gifts,  had  denied 
them  those  more  solid  and  enduring  qualities  which  lead 
to  the  highest  human  development,  alike  in  morality 
and  politics."  So  it  is  easy  to  understand  the  reverence 
of  the  Celts  for  such  of  their  leaders  as  have  excelled 
in  practical  affairs.  To  this  reverence  is  due  the  genesis 
of  the  legend  of  Arthur.  He  achieved  renown  as  the 
leader  of  his  people  in  their  hour  of  need,  and  his 
successes  instantly  magnified  his  position.  From  being 


96  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

so  little  distinguished  that  one  of  the  early  chroniclers 
does  not  even  mention  his  name,  he  is  presently  invested 
with  the  dignity  of  a  great  epic  hero,  and  his  victories 
grow  in  number  and  in  significance.  In  the  Latin  his- 
tory of  Nennius,  a  compilation  of  uncertain  authorship 
and  date,  the  traces  of  popular  imagination  are  plainly 
to  be  seen.  Arthur  is  said  to  have  been  successful  in 
twelve  battles,  and  to  have  slain  nine  hundred  and  forty 
of  the  enemy  in  the  contest  at  Mount  Badon.  But  his 
growing  fame  soon  took  other  forms,  some  idea  of  which 
may  be  gained  from  the  celebrated  compilation  of  Welsh 
stories  called  the  'Mabinogion.'  The  narratives  in  this 
collection  differ  widely  in  provenience  and  date,  but  from 
those  of  more  primitive  form  we  may  gain  some  idea  of 
the  Arthur  of  song  and  story  while  he  was  still  a  half- 
savage  Celtic  ruler.  The  exploits  of  his  heroes,  as  re- 
lated here,  belong  rather  to  old  wives'  tales  than  to  the 
glories  of  romance.  In  character  and  appearance,  too, 
these  heroes  are  indeed  different  from  the  "  flowers  of 
courtesy  "  of  a  later  age.  Osla  Gyllellvawr,  one  of  his 
champions,  bore  a  short  broad  dagger  with  the  marvel- 
ous property  that  "  when  Arthur  and  his  hosts  came 
before  a  torrent,  they  would  seek  for  a  narrow  place 
where  they  might  pass  the  water,  and  would  lay  the 
sheathed  dagger  across  the  torrent,  and  it  would  form  a 
bridge  sufficient  for  the  armies  of  the  three  Islands  of 
Britain,  and  of  the  three  islands  adjacent,  with  their 
spoil."  "Sgilti  Yscawndroed,  when  he  intended  to  go 
on  a  message  for  his  Lord,  never  sought  to  find  a  path, 
but  knowing  whither  he  was  to  go,  if  his  way  lay 
through  a  wood  he  went  along  the  tops  of  the  trees." 
"Sugyn,  the  son  of  Sugnedydd  .  .  .  would  suck  up  the 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  97 

sea  on  which  were  three  hundred  ships,  so  as  to  leave 
nothing  but  a  dry  strand/7  The  haughty  Kay  of  the 
later  romances  appears  in  this  motley  company,  as  out- 
landish, apparently,  as  the  rest.  "  So  great  was  the  heat 
of  his  nature  that,  when  it  rained  hardest,  whatever  he 
carried  remained  dry  for  a  handbreadth  above  and  a 
handbreadth  below  his  hand ;  and  when  his  compan- 
ions were  coldest,  it  was  to  them  as  fuel  with  which  to 
light  their  fire."  Some  of  these  curious  characteristics 
may  be  seen  even  in  the  pages  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory ; 
Gawain's  strength  waxed  and  waned  with  the  course  of 
the  day. 

These  more  primitive  tales  in  the  'Mabinogion'  are 
not  merely  fantastic ;  they  often  prefigure  the  beauty 
and  richness  of  the  later  romances.  Kilhwch,  the 
young  warrior  who,  with  the  aid  of  Arthur,  performs 
seemingly  impossible  feats  in  order  to  win  his  bride,  ap- 
pears before  us  in  all  the  radiance  of  Celtic  poetry. 

The  youth  pricked  forth  upon  a  steed  with  head  dappled  grey,  of 
four  winters  old,  firm  of  limb,  with  shell-formed  hoofs,  having  a 
bridle  of  linked  gold  on  his  head,  and  upon  him  a  saddle  of  costly 
gold.  And  in  the  youth's  hand  were  two  spears  of  silver,  sharp,  well- 
tempered,  headed  with  steel,  three  ells  in  length,  of  an  edge  to  wound 
the  wind,  and  cause  blood  to  flow,  and  swifter  than  the  fall  of  the  dew- 
drop  from  the  blade  of  reed-grass  upon  the  earth  when  the  dew  of 
June  is  at  the  heaviest.  A  gold-hilted  sword  was  upon  his  thigh, 
the  blade  of  which  was  of  gold,  bearing  a  cross  of  inlaid  gold  of  the 
hue  of  the  lightning  of  heaven;  his  war-horn  was  of  ivory.  .  .  . 
And  his  courser  cast  up  four  sods  with  his  four  hoofs,  like  four  swal- 
lows in  the  air,  about  his  head,  now  above,  now  below.  About  him 
was  a  four-cornered  cloth  of  purple,  and  an  apple  of  gold  was  at  each 
corner,  and  every  one  of  the  apples  was  of  the  value  of  an  hundred 
kine.  And  there  was  precious  gold  of  the  value  of  three  hundred 
kine  upon  his  shoes,  and  upon  his  stirrups,  from  his  knee  to  the  tip  of 


98  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

his  toe.  And  the  blade  of  grass  bent  not  beneath  him,  so  light  was 
his  courser's  tread  as  he  journeyed  towards  the  gate  of  Arthur's 
palace. 

About  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  Arthur  first 
emerged  definitely  from  his  semi-barbaric  Celtic  sur- 
roundings, and,  after  a  proper  introduction  to  the  world, 
entered  the  most  fashionable  society  of  Western  Eu- 
rope, and  reorganized  his  court  according  to  the  most 
approved  models.  In  those  days,  as  for  many  centu- 
ries to  come,  France  was  the  arbiter  of  taste  in  manners, 
dress,  and  fashions  generally.  Under  the  hands  of  the 
French,  Arthur  and  his  knights  became  accomplished 
courtiers,  with  all  the  graces  of  the  age,  clad  in  fair  rai- 
ment, and  with  new  refinements  of  thought  and  feeling. 
The  Conquest  was  one  means  of  bringing  this  about ; 
the  Anglo-French  were  fond  of  a  good  story,  and  saw  in 
Arthur  a  champion  not  less  interesting  than  their  own 
heroes.  Again,  the  peoples  of  Celtic  stock  in  France 
itself,  especially  in  Brittany  or  Armorica,  had  perpetu- 
ated the  name  and  fame  of  Arthur  among  themselves, 
and  they  now  added  their  contribution  to  French  ro- 
mance. Which  of  these  two  sources  is  mainly  respon- 
sible for  the  astonishing  spread  of  the  story  among  the 
French  is  still  a  matter  of  dispute  among  scholars ;  but 
if  we  consider  that  each  source  had  in  all  likelihood  its  due 
share,  we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  the  precise 
details.  A  Welsh  priest,  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  did 
much  to  make  the  material  popular  among  the  French 
on  English  soil,  by  embodying  it  in  his  so-called  "  his- 
tory/' A  historical  novel  we  may  better  call  it,  or  per- 
haps merely  a  novel,  since  imaginative  and  legendary 
incidents  so  far  outweigh  real  facts.  The  important 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  99 

thing  to  note  is  that  here  Arthur  is  first  drawn  out  of  the 
Celtic  twilight,  invested  with  the  magnificence  of  a 
medieval  monarch,  and  introduced  to  the  world  at  large. 
He  is  no  longer  served  by  "a  red,  rough,  ill-favored  man, 
having  red  whiskers  with  bristly  hairs/ '  as  in  the  '  Dream 
of  Rhonabwy'  in  the  'Mabinogion.'  Such  uncouth 
servitors  are  banished,  and  some  of  the  "  thousand  young 
noblemen,  all  clothed  in  ermine,"  who  attended  him  at 
his  coronation  are  doubtless  retained.  In  Geoffrey's 
pages  Arthur  and  his  court  come  up  in  the  world 
mightily,  with  much  of  the  elegance  which  was  later  to 
surround  them  as  the  ideal  representatives  of  the  system 
of  chivalry.  As  Geoffrey  says,  "At  that  time  Britain 
had  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of  grandeur,  that  in  abun- 
dance of  riches,  luxury  of  ornaments,  and  politeness  of 
inhabitants,  it  far  surpassed  all  other  kingdoms.  The 
knights  in  it  that  were  famous  for  feats  of  chivalry  wore 
their  clothes  and  arms  all  of  the  same  color  and  fashion ; 
and  the  women  also  no  less  celebrated  for  their  wit, 
wore  all  the  same  kind  of  apparel,  and  esteemed  none 
worthy  of  their  love  but  such  as  had  given  proof  of 
their  valor  in  three  several  battles.  Thus  was  the  valor 
of  the  men  an  encouragement  for  the  women's  chastity, 
and  the  love  of  the  women  a  spur  to  the  soldiers'  brav- 
ery." 

We  may  compare  with  the  cruder  tales  in  the  'Mab- 
inogion/  from  which  illustrations  of  the  more  primitive 
forms  of  the  story  have  been  cited,  others  in  the  same 
collection  which  have  passed  through  the  hands  of  the 
French  and  thus  gained  new  elegance.  The  fact  that 
the  Welsh  welcomed  their  own  stories  back  again  in 
a  new  dress,  and  gave  them  a  place  in  one  of  the  most 


100  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

famous  of  all  their  collections  of  native  narratives  well 
illustrates  the  influence  exerted  by  France  upon  sur- 
rounding nations.  Practically  all  the  Arthurian  ro- 
mances in  English  are  either  translated  from  French 
originals  or  imitated  from  French  models,  and  the  same  is 
true,  with  some  reservations,  of  the  tales  of  the  knights 
of  the  Round  Table  in  Germany  and  Italy  and  the 
Scandinavian  countries.  The  greatest  period  of  Ger- 
man poetry,  aside  from  the  era  of  Goethe  and  Schiller,  — 
the  period  of  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  and  Hartmann 
von  Aue,  and  Gottfried  von  Strassburg,  —  would  have 
been  impossible  had  it  not  been  for  French  poets.  And 
so,  while  we  shall  look  to  Germany  for  the  most  pro- 
foundly religious  and  symbolical  version  of  the  Legend 
of  the  Holy  Grail,  and  for  the  noblest  conception  of  the 
love  of  Tristram  and  Iseult,  and  to  England  for  the  most 
refined  conception  of  the  courtesy  of  Gawain,  we  must 
never  forget  that  the  fountain-head  of  the  inspiration 
which  produced  these  masterpieces  was  French  poetry. 
It  is  interesting  to  imagine  what  Roland  and  Gawain 
would  have  thought  of  each  other  had  they  met  by 
chance  in  their  wanderings.  It  seems  probable  that 
while  each  would  have  paid  due  respect  to  the  courage 
of  the  other,  Roland  would  have  thought  Gawain  finicky 
and  sentimental,  too  much  worried  over  detail,  too  elabo- 
rate in  his  manners,  while  Gawain  would  have  felt  Ro- 
land too  rude  and  boastful,  too  lacking  in  consideration 
for  women  and  somewhat  deficient  in  knightly  courtesy. 
Roland,  we  feel,  would  have  more  sympathy  with  Beo- 
wulf than  with  Gawain.  By  birth  and  breeding  Roland 
belongs  in  the  Heroic  Period,  albeit  at  its  very  close. 
But  when  Gawain  rides  forth  into  the  fields  of  European 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  .101" 

romance,  a  new  set  of  social  laws  has  come  into  existence, 
without  observance  of  which  no  manners  at  all  are  pos- 
sible. We  must  now  see  just  how  these  laws  arose,  and 
how  they  affected  those  aristocratic  circles  with  which 
the  Arthurian  story  is  primarily  concerned-X^ 

For  the  genesis  of  chivalry,  which  grew  up  coinci- 
dently  with  the  fullest  development  of  the  feudal  sys- 
tem, we  must  look  rather  to  the  south  than  to  the  north 
of  France.  The '  Song  of  Roland/  as  we  have  seen,  repre- 
sents to  a  large  extent  the  Germanic  elements  of  the 
northern  part  of  the  country,  those  sterner  virtues  which 
led  to  success  in  war  and  made  politics  a  matter  of  force. 
In  the  south,  the  Gallo-Latin  element  in  the  population 
produced  a  softer  and  more  sensuous  temperament,  a 
greater  devotion  to  the  fragile  and  joyous  and  beautiful 
things  of  life.  .The  very  name  Provence  suggests  the 
music  of  Troubadours  and  the  smiles  of  women.  The 
north  was  a  region  of  deeds,  the  south  of  dreams ;  the 
one  celebrated  action,  the  other  feeling ;  the  one  culti- 
vated epic,  the  other  lyric.  There  is  no  sharp  geographi- 
cal division  possible  in  literature,  of  course ;  the  heroes 
of  the  'Song  of  Roland/  as  of  the  other  chansons  de  geste, 
came  from  all  over  the  country,  but  their  spirit  is  essen- 
tially Germanic.  Lyric  poets  sang  in  the  north,  but  the 
makers  of  Provence  showed  them  the  secrets  of  their  art. 
The  Arthurian  romances  represent  the  union  of  these 
two  elements,  forming  a  more  national  product,  in  one 
sense,  than  the  chansons  de  geste,  since,  in  mirroring  the 
system  of  chivalry,  they  represent  more  truly  the  con- 
tribution of  the  whole  country ;  a  far  less  national  prod- 
uct in  another  sense,  since  they  deal  largely  with  foreign 
material  which  makes  no  appeal  to  French  patriotism. 


102  ,<*';',,,,'  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

It  hardly  need  be  said  that  the  most  striking  change 
introduced  by  Provence  into  the  literature  of  the  age 
concerns  the  position  of  woman.  We  have  noted  that  in 
stories  of  the  Heroic  Age  love  is  generally,  though  not 
always,  treated  as  secondary  in  interest  to  warlike  ad- 
venture. The  power  of  love  was  not  ignored  in  the 
earlier  period,  but  it  was  frequently  made  the  moti- 
vation for  more  absorbing  tales  of  combat,  rather  than 
celebrated  for  its  own  sake.  A  queen  is  chosen  from  a 
foreign  people,  war  arises  between  her  native  and  her 
adopted  country,  and  the  tragic  alternative  is  presented 
her  of  choosing  between  her  husband  and  children,  and 
her  father  and  brothers.  Or  a  bride  is  gained  without 
the  consent  of  her  father,  who  pursues  and  fights  the 
abductor,  while  the  distracted  maiden  is  again  torn  by 
the  claims  of  love  and  duty.  Such  are  the  typical  mo- 
tives of  earlier  story.  Woman  is  a  comrade  if  not  an  in- 
ferior, the  object  of  animal  passion  or  of  manly  love,  but 
she  is  seldom  sentimentalized  over,  and  frequently  quite 
forgotten.  Heroes  do  not  spend  their  time  sighing  for 
a  lady ;  they  carry  her  off,  or  find  another,  if  they  think 
one  necessary  to  their  happiness.  Chivalry  tolerates 
nothing  like  this ;  it  raises  woman  to  a  new  eminence, 
and  makes  her  an  altogether  superior  being,  to  be  arti- 
ficially wooed  and  won ;  and  it  replaces  normal  love  by 
conventional  and  even  immoral  sexual  relations.  The 
chivalric  hero  weeps  and  wails,  he  loses  his  appetite, 
and  sometimes  his  reason.  Or  he  may  pine  in  solitude, 
or  perhaps  quiet  the  throbbing  of  his  wounded  heart  by 
impossible  adventures  in  foreign  lands.  Frequently  he 
takes  to  his  bed,  and  refuses  all  comfort.  The  hero  of 
Chaucer's  '  Franklin's  Tale '  is  a  flower  of  chivalry ;  he 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  103 

falls  in  love  with  a  married  woman  (the  fashionable 
thing  to  do) ;  she  repulses  him,  and  then 

In  langour  and  in  torment  furious 

Two  yeer  and  more  lay  wrecche  Aurelius, 

Er  any  foot  he  mighte  on  erthe  goon. 

But  for  all  such  sickness  there  was  always  a  cure,  — 
a  single  favoring  glance  from  the  bright  eyes  of  the 
lady ! 

The  distinctive  contribution  of  Provence  to  the  ro- 
mantic literature  of  the  day  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
charming  story  of  Aucassin  and  Nicolete.  It  is  hardly 
representative  of  a  class,  for  no  other  tale  told  with  the 
same  peculiar  blending  of  prose  and  verse  has  been  pre- 
served from  this  period,  whatever  may  once  have  existed, 
and  in  delicacy  of  conception  and  execution  it  is  far 
above  the  medieval  average.  Nor  is  it  in  any  way  con- 
nected with  King  Arthur.  It  is  almost  too  familiar  to 
bear  quotation,  especially  since  Andrew  Lang  has  made 
it  familiar  to  many  who  cannot  read  it  in  the  original; 
yet  hardly  anything  else  serves  so  perfectly  as  an  illus- 
tration of  the  Provengal  spirit,  or  bears  repetition  so 
well.  It  was  probably  written  only  some  sixty  or  sev- 
enty years  later  than  the '  Song  of  Roland '  in  its  pres- 
ent form,  but  a  very  few  lines  will  show  the  striking 
changes  in  contemporary  social  ideals  which  it  reflects. 

The  description  of  the  hero  might  stand  well  enough 
for  one  of  Charlemagne's  knights. 

Aucassin  was  the  name  of  the  damoiseau;  fair  was  he,  goodly, 
and  great,  and  featly  fashioned  of  his  body  and  limbs.  His  hair 
was  yellow,  in  little  curls,  his  eyes  blue  and  laughing,  his  face 
beautiful  and  shapely,  his  nose  high  and  well-set,  and  so  richly 
seen  was  he  in  all  things  good  that  in  him  was  none  evil  at  all. 


104  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

But  the  resemblance  soon  ends ;  he  loves  a  pagan 
maiden,  captive  among  the  Christians,  and  not  at  all 
as  the  heroes  of  the  chansons  de  geste  loved  a  sultan's 
daughter  on  occasion. 

But  so  suddenly  was  he  overtaken  of  Love,  who  is  a  great  master, 
that  he  would  not,  of  his  will,  be  dubbed  a  knight,  nor  take  arms, 
nor  follow  tourneys,  nor  do  whatsoever  him  beseemed.  Therefore 
his  father  and  mother  said  to  him:  "  Son,  go  take  thine  arms,  mount 
thy  horse,  and  hold  thy  land,  and  keep  thy  men,  for  if  they  see 
thee  among  them  more  stoutly  will  they  keep  in  battle  their  lives, 
and  lands,  and  thine,  and  mine."  "  Father,"  said  Aucassin,  "  I 
marvel  that  you  will  be  speaking.  Never  may  God  give  me  aught 
of  my  desire  if  I  be  made  knight,  or  mount  my  horse,  or  face 
stour  and  battle  wherein  knights  smite  and  are  smitten  again,  un- 
less thou  give  me  Nicolete,  my  true  love,  that  I  love  so  well." 

Imagine  Roland's  answer  if  asked  to  choose  between 
Paradise  and  the  fair  Aude,  and  then  listen  to  Aucassin, 
when  warned  that  a  love  like  his  will  bar  to  him  the  en- 
trance to  Heaven.  "In  Paradise  what  have  I  to  win? 
Therein  I  seek  not  to  enter,  but  only  to  have  Nicolete, 
my  sweet  lady  that  I  love  so  well." 

The  story  is  exceptional  for  its  unaffected  delicacy  and 
straightforwardness,  but  not  for  the  prominence  which  it 
gives  to  the  element  of  love.  From  the  time  of  the  Con- 
quest until  the  Renaissance  and  even  later,  this  was  the 
controlling  interest  of  narrative  poetry.  The  golden 
thread  which  guides  one  through  the  complicated  mazes 
of  many  a  romance  is  likely  to  be  provided  by  some 
medieval  Ariadne,  waiting  at  the  end  of  the  skein  for 
the  return  of  her  champion.  Their  love  is  often  spon- 
taneous in  feeling  and  genuine  in  expression ;  the  tales 
of  Erec  and  Enid,  and  of  Tristram  and  Iseult,  are  full  of 
sincere  and  mutual  devotion.  Iseult  is  no  less  straight- 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  105 

forward  than  Brunhild.  The  curious  artificiality  in 
matters  of  the  heart  which  we  have  noted  is  particularly 
characteristic  of  the  more  developed  chivalric  system ; 
when  lovers  are  more  concerned  with  rules  of  conduct 
than  with  passion  they  naturally  fail  to  act  spontaneously. 
The  singular  idea  that  woman  should  be  a  passive  idol,  a 
mutely  aloof  creature  playing  with  the  tortured  feelings 
of  the  hero,  and  finally  yielding  through  pity  rather 
than  through  passion,  reaches  its  climax  about  a  hun- 
dred years  after  'Aucassin  and  Nicolete.'  The  'Ro- 
mance of  the  Rose '  illustrates  this  well  enough;  the  lady, 
the  Rosebud  in  the  garden  of  Mirth,  has  nothing  to  do 
throughout  the  thousands  of  lines  in  the  poem,  while 
the  lover  is  assailed  by  all  conceivable  emotions,  and 
reaches  his  goal  at  last  only  through  long  tribulation. 
Yet  this  tendency  is  foreshadowed  even  in  the  words 
with  which  Aucassin  replies  to  the  protestations  of 
Nicolete. 

"Ah,  fair  sweet  friend,"  said  Aucassin,  "  it  may  not  be  that  thou 
shouldst  love  me  even  as  I  love  thee.  Woman  may  not  love  man 
as  man  loves  woman,  for  a  woman's  love  lies  in  the  glance  of  her 
eye,  and  the  bud  of  her  breast,  and  her  foot's  tip-toe,  but  the  love  of 
man  is  in  his  heart  planted,  whence  it  can  never  issue  forth  and  pass 
away." 

The  medieval  knight  had  well-known  duties  towards 
woman  in  general  as  well  as  towards  the  bright  particu- 
lar star  whom  he  had  chosen  to  servey'  It  was  proper 
for  him  to  be  tormented  by  love  in  the  abstract  if  no  ap- 
propriate object  had  presented  herself  for  his  devotion, 
or  to  assist  any  lady  who  claimed  his  protection.  The 
ideal  hero  was  the  champion  of  all  distressed  ladies  in  a 
world  of  oppression,  and  the  court  of  Arthur  was  a 


106  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

refuge  for  all  such  damsels.  Often,  in  the  romances, 
some  beautiful  and  unfortunate  heroine  interrupts 
the  great  king,  while  he  and  his  knights  are  sitting  at 
meat,  by  advancing  boldly  into  the  hall,  attended  by 
other  ladies  or  by  an  ugly  dwarf,  and  begging  a  boon  of 
him.  Or  a  hero,  riding  through  a  leafy  forest,  meets  a 
lady  whom  he  has  never  seen  before,  and  at  her  request 
abandons  his  business,  turns  about  to  escort  her  on  her 
way,  kills  a  giant  and  leaves  him  in  his  blood,  or  over- 
comes a  champion  hostile  to  her.  This  comes  close  to 
our  modern  conception  of  the  word  "chivalry/1  —  with 
a  little  exaggeration.  But  the  Middle  Ages  extended 
this  to  man's  relations  with  his  fellow-men,  as  well  as 
with  women.  "Courtoisie"  meant  much  more  than 
" courtesy"  does  to  us.  Complete  self-forgetfulness 
in  the  desire  to  be  of  assistance  to  others  was  as  much 
a  part  of  it  as  external  fine  manners.  All  knights  under 
affliction,  oppressed  by  those  more  powerful  than  them- 
selves, or  laboring  under  magic  spells,  could  look  to  the 
Round  Table  for  redress.  Gawain  rather  than  Arthur 
was  the  most  perfect  example  of  knightly  generosity. 
With  him,  indeed,  it  becomes  a  kind  of  desmesure,  or 
heroic  recklessness.  He  marries  a  loathly  lady  out  of 
hand  to  help  Arthur  out  of  a  tight  place ;  he  cuts  off  the 
head  of  his  host  on  request  without  the  slightest  hesitation, 
-  not  because  he  realizes  that  this  will  free  his  afflicted 
entertainer  from  a  spell,  but  because  the  perfect  guest 
ought  to  do  as  he  is  told.  He  pledges  himself  unhesi- 
tatingly to  the  most  fantastic  adventures  when  his  aid 
has  been  invoked.  Common-sense  is  the  last  thing  to 
deter  him. 

Such  absurdities  in  the  romances  arise  partly  from 


THE  ARTHURIAN   ROMANCES  107 

the  peculiar  character  of  the  incidents  typical  of  Celtic 
story.  These  imaginative  elaborations,  not  the  slight 
historical  foundations,  constitute  the  really  important 
Celtic  elements  in  the  Arthurian  legends.  Celtic  magic 
and  mystery  is  of  a  peculiar  sort,  easier  to  distinguish 
from  that  of  other  countries  by  feeling  than  by  defini- 
tion. In  Germanic  stories,  when  supernatural  beings 
appear,  the  wind  still  blows  stiffly  off  the  rocky  head- 
lands, and  the  keen  sea-air  strikes  sharply  in  the  face. 
Such  beings  are  more  gruesome  because  they  are  re- 
vealed in  a  world  of  everyday  things.  The  roaring  of 
Fafnir  sounds  from  the  sunlit  forest,  Hilde  wakes  the 
dead  warriors  in  the  chill  clear  northern  night,  and  the 
Rhine  daughters  need  no  extraordinary  conditions  in 
order  to  appear  bodily  before  Hagen  and  the  Burgun- 
dians.  The  vivid  description  of  the  haunted  pool  in 
'Beowulf'  is  exceptional;  we  may  remember  that 
there  are  those  who  think  that  Celtic  elements  have 
gone  to  the  making  of  the  tale.  In  the  Arthurian  stories, 
however,  we  have  the  sensation  of  moving  in  a  world 
where  natural  phenomena  are  not  only  suspended,  but 
not  to  be  expected ;  the  whole  has  something  of  the  un- 
reality of  a  dream.  Merlin  is  only  one  magician  in  a 
world  of  enchanters  and  enchantment,  and  his  illusions 
lose  a  little  of  their  effect  in  the  frequency  of  other- 
world  mistresses,  elfin  •  knights,  bespelled  ladies,  be- 
witched castles,  and  the  like.  Adventures  have  the 
inconsequence  of  dreams ;  a  hideous  Turk  changes  to  a 
knight  when  his  head  is  cut  off;  a  serpent  kisses  Li- 
beaus  Desconus  and  becomes  a  beautiful  woman ;  water 
is  cast  from  a  fountain  upon  a  magic  stone,  and  a  storm 
arises  in  the  enchanted  wood,  the  birds  cease  to  sing, 


108  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

and  a  champion,  armed  to  the  teeth,  plunges  forward 
ready  for  battle.     It  is  the  logic  of  fairyland. 

Matthew  Arnold,  in  seeking  to  discover  the  distin- 
guishing qualities  of  Celtic  literature,  quoted  with 
approval  Henri  Martin's  phrase,  "  sentimental,  always 
ready  to  act  against  the  despotism  of  fact."  This 
would  be  an  almost  equally  happy  characterization  of 
the  Arthurian  romances,  with  their  lack  of  realism  and 
abundance  of  fantasy,  their  glorification  of  woman  and 
their  insistence  on  the  sensuous  side  of  life.  Arnold 
furthermore  suggested,  though  cautiously,  the  connec- 
tion between  the  system  of  chivalry  and  the  sentimental- 
ity of  the  Celtic  temperament.  "No  doubt  the  sensi- 
bility of  the  Celtic  nature,  its  nervous  exaltation,  have 
something  feminine  in  them,  and  the  Celt  is  thus  pecul- 
iarly disposed  to  feel  the  spell  of  the  feminine  idiosyn- 
crasy ;  he  has  an  affinity  to  it ;  he  is  not  far  from  its 
secret. "  Moreover,  Arnold  recognized  that  the  exag- 
gerations of  medieval  romantic  poetry  are  such  as 
would  naturally  arise  from  characteristics  like  these. 
"  There  is,  in  truth,  a  Celtic  air  about  the  extravagance 
of  chivalry,  its  reaction  against  the  despotism  of  fact, 
its  straining  human  nature  further  than  it  will  stand." 
Yet  while  much  of  the  absurdity  as  well  as  much  of  the 
charm  of  medieval  romance  arises  from  the  influence 
which  this  people  has  exerted  upon  it,  we  may  be  sure 
that,  apart  from  the  supernatural,  it  reflects  to  a  large 
degree  the  actual  habits  of  thought  of  those  among 
whom  it  reached  its  fullest  development,  that  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  the  spirit  of  the  aristocracy  of  Western 
Europe.  We  may  see  apt  illustrations  of  this  by  com- 
paring the  Grail  romances  with  memoirs  of  the  Cru- 


THE  ARTHURIAN  ROMANCES  109 

saders,  in  both  of  which  appear  the  same  exaltation,. the 
same  forgetfulness  of  fact  in  the  demands  of  the  ideal. 
Religion,  to  be  sure,  produces  such  exaltation  in  the 
highest  degree,  but  religion  and  knightly  behavior  were 
so  closely  intertwined  in  the  Middle  Ages  that  separation 
of  them  is  difficult.  Chivalry  was  not  only  a  rule  of 
conduct  for  man  in  his  relations  with  men  and  women, 
but  equally  so  in  his  relations  with  God.  It  is  not  to  be 
explained  by  any  simple  formula ;  it  was  a  complicated 
growth,  in  the  making  of  which  many  elements  had 
their  share.  Its  exaggerations  and  extravagances  are 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  medieval  temper,  which 
was  never  content  with  halfway  measures.  We  see 
the  reflection  of  such  absurdities  in  the  plots  of  Shak- 
spere's  plays,  the  'Merchant  of  Venice/  for  example,  in 
which  Antonio's  quixotic  devotion  to  the  interests  of  his 
friend  is  only  paralleled  by  Portia's  ludicrous  method  of 
selecting  a  husband.  So  Gawain,  the  model  of  courtesy, 
must  sacrifice  everything  in  order  to  satisfy  the  medi- 
eval ideal  of  the  perfect  gentleman. 

There  is,  after  all,  a  pathetic  nobility  about  the  very 
extravagances  of  chivalry.     They  reveal  a  people  de- 
termined to  pursue,  regardless  of  consequences,  a  course 
of  action  which  they  believe  to  be  right.     Incongruity 
never  disturbs  them.     Sir  Gawain's  adventures  with 
the  Green  Knight,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  all  the , 
Arthurian  stories,  are  really  no  less  absurd  than  much  1 
that  befalls  Don  Quixote,  and  many  of  the  causes  which  1 
the  average  knight-errant  espoused  were  really  no  more  \ 
practical  than  tilting   at   windmills.     But  the  under- 
lying motive  redeemed  the  action,  just  as  Cervantes7 
caricature  of  chivalry  was  so  far  altered  by  the  ideal- 


110  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

ism  of  the  hero  that  Don  Quixote  has  stood  for  succeed- 
ing ages  not  alone  as  an  embodiment  of  the  grotesque 
features  of  knighthood,  but  of  its  tenderness  and  its 
devotion  and  its  enthusiasm.     We  smile  at  Dulcinea  del 
Toboso,  but  not  at  the  spirit  which  makes  fidelity  to 
her  a  reason  for  championing  the  cause  of  all  distressed 
I  ladies.      The    medieval    love-conventions,  artificial  as 
/  they  were,  brought  a  new  respect  for  women  and  a  new 
/    gentleness  into  the  heroic  ideal.     If  chivalry  did  tend 
to  become  oversubtle  and  extravagant,  it  exercised  a  re- 
fining influence  upon  character  which  was  sorely  needed, 
and  marked  a  great  advance  over  the  lack  of  the  softer 
emotions  in  a  Beowulf  or  a  Roland. 

It  was  impossible,  too,  that  a  system  of  conduct, 
guided  and  controlled  by  Christianity,  which  proclaims 
the  brotherhood  of  man,  and  commands  consideration 
for  the  poor  and  unfortunate,  should  not  have  had  its 
effect  upon  the  relations  between  the  upper  and  the 
lower  classes  of  society.  St.  Louis,  denying  magnifi- 
cence to  his  household  in  order  to  give  to  the  poor,  was 
no  isolated  figure.  His  sacrifices  may  be  explained  as 
piety  rather  than  as  the  generosity  which  springs  from 
a  larger  social  consciousness,  perhaps,  but  similar  tend- 
encies manifest  themselves  in  the  life  and  literature  of 
the  time  quite  apart  from  religious  motives.  We  have 
seen  how  little  religion  means  to  Aucassin,  who  prefers 
human  love  to  the  salvation  of  his  soul,  yet  he  gives 
money  to  help  a  poor  and  repulsive  peasant  whom  he 
meets  in  the  forest.  The  man  has  met  with  sore  mis- 
fortune :  — 

"I  was  hireling  to  a  rich  villein,  and  drove  his  plough ;  four  oxen 
had  he.  But  three  days  since  came  on  me  a  great  misfortune, 


THE  ARTHURIAN   ROMANCES  111 

whereby  I  lost  the  best  of  mine  oxen,  Roger,  the  best  of  my  team. 
Him  go  I  seeking,  and  have  neither  eaten  nor  drunken  these  three 
days,  nor  may  I  go  to  the  town,  lest  they  cast  me  into  prison,  seeing 
that  I  have  not  wherewithal  to  pay.  Out  of  all  the  wealth  of  the 
world  have  I  no  more  than  ye  see  on  my  body.  A  poor  mother  bare 
me,  that  had  no  more  but  one  wretched  bed ;  this  have  they  taken 
from  under  her,  and  she  lies  in  the  very  straw." 

Aucassin  gives  him  enough  to  replace  the  lost  ox,  and 
sends  him  on  his  way  with  new  hope  in  his  heart. 

The  consideration  sometimes  shown  by  the  knights  of 
Arthur  to  their  inferiors  is  illustrated  by  an  episode  in 
the  'Morte  Darthur'  of  Malory,  which  relates  how  Per- 
ceval, being  in  sore  need  of  a  horse,  meets  a  yeoman  in 
the  forest,  riding  upon  a  hackney,  and  leading  by  the 
bridle  a  magnificent  steed.  Perceval  begs  of  him  the 
loan  of  the  horse,  but  the  yeoman  refuses,  realizing,  how- 
ever, that  he  is  powerless  to  resist  if  the  knight  chooses 
to  use  force. 

"  Sir,"  said  the  yeoman,  "  I  am  right  heavy  for  you,  for  a  good 
horse  would  beseem  you  well,  but  I  dare  not  deliver  you  this  horse, 
but  if  ye  would  take  him  from  me."  "  That  will  I  not  do,"  said 
Sir  Per ce vale.  And  so  they  departed,  and  Sir  Per ce vale  sat  him 
down  under  a  tree,  and  made  sorrow  out  of  measure. 

Mark  Twain's  description  of  the  later  Middle  Ages, 
then,  is  only  partly  true,  because  he  neglected  the  finer 
issues,  and  emphasized  the  more  brutal  features.  He 
relieved  the  gloom  of  his  picture  by  glimpses  of  brilliant 
pageantry,  but  he  forgot  that  the  truer  contrast  would 
have  been  the  ideality  of  the  times,  and  that  in  deli- 
cacy of  feeling,  in  reverence  for  women,  in  courtesy  to 
friend  and  foe,  the  Arthurian  story  foreshadowed  much 
that  is  gentlest  and  best  in  modern  civilization.  Its 
sentiment  sometimes  became  sentimentality,  but  the 


112  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

rudeness  of  the  age  required  an  excess  of  romance,  just 
as  the  age  of  Richardson,  tired  of  the  classical  insistence 
on  the  superiority  of  the  head  over  the  heart,  welcomed 
the  lachrymosities  of  Clarissa  Harlowe.  It  is  a  pity 
to  make  King  Arthur,  the  incarnation  of  the  ideals  of 
chivalry,  responsible  for  the  worst  features  of  medieval 
society.  Tennyson  utilized  the  love  of  Tristram  and 
Iseult  to  point  a  mid- Victorian  moral,  warping  the  plot 
and  lowering  the  tone  of  the  story  to  suit  his  purpose. 
It  was  a  blunder;  medieval  romance  ought  not  to  be 
butchered  to  make  a  modern  holiday.  Tennyson  was, 
on  the  whole,  just  to  King  Arthur,  however ;  he  repre- 
sented him,  as  modern  poets  generally  have  done,  as  a 
champion  of  the  forces  of  righteousness.  This  is  the  true 
Arthurian  tradition,  and  has  been  for  many  centuries 
since  the  Celts  first  longed  for  the  great  hero's  return 
from  Avalon.  It  is,  indeed,  familiar  enough  to  us  to- 
day. A  recent  bit  of  magazine  verse,  pleading  for  social 
reform  in  America,  voices  the  ideals  which  he  symbolizes 
as  triumphantly  as  do  the  romances  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

King  Arthur's  men  have  come  again. 

They  challenge  everywhere 

The  foes  of  Christ's  Eternal  Church. 

Her  incense  crowns  the  air. 

The  heathen  knighthood  cower  and  curse 

To  hear  the  bugles  ring, 

But  spears  are  set,  the  charge  is  on, 

Wise  Arthur  shall  be  king ! 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL 


"  Comrades  in  arms  !  Mates  of  the  Table  Round ! 
Fair  Sirs,  my  fellows  in  the  bannered  ring, 
Ours  is  a  lofty  tryst !  this  day  we  meet, 
Not  under  shield,  with  scarf  and  knightly  gage, 
To  quench  our  thirst  of  love  in  ladies'  eyes : 
We  shall  not  mount  to-day  that  goodly  throne, 
The  conscious  steed,  with  thunder  in  his  loins, 
To  launch  along  the  field  the  arrowy  spear  : 
Nay,  but  a  holier  theme,  a  mightier  Quest  — 
'Ho  !  for  the  Sangraal,  vanished  Vase  of  God  ! ' " 

-  —  HAWKER,  '  Quest  of  the  Sangraal.' 


V 
THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL 

ONE  of  the  most  interesting  religious  movements  of 
the  nineteenth  century  was  the  foundation  and  develop- 
ment of  the  Salvation  Army.  From  small  beginnings, 
from  a  mere  handful  of  followers,  it  has  become,  at  the 
present  day,  one  of  the  chief  influences  for  good  in  our 
great  cities.  There  is  scarcely  a  place  of  importance 
in  the  United  States  or  in  the  British  Empire  where  its 
music  may  not  sometimes  be  heard  in  the  streets  at 
night,  and  where  its  exhortations  to  forsake  sin  and  fol- 
low after  righteousness  are  not  helping  hundreds  who 
might  otherwise  feel  themselves  outcasts  from  the 
Kingdom  of  God.  Every  year  the  ranks  of  the  Army 
are  swelled  with  enthusiastic  recruits.  Substantial 
support  has  come  to  its  work  not  only  from  the  poor 
and  unfortunate,  but  also  from  those  who  have  the  ad- 
vantages of  wealth  and  prosperity.  If  we  think  of  it 
as  one  great  organization,  like  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  or  the  Protestant  Episcopal  communion,  we 
may  safely  reckon  it  as  one  of  the  most  important  re- 
ligious bodies  of  modern  times. 

What  has  been  the  secret  of  its  success?  First,  no 
doubt,  the  practical  character  of  its  teaching  and  of  its 
religious  activity.  The  sinner  is  brought  face  to  face 
with  thp  fundamental  truths  which  all  Christians 

115 


116  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

accept,  but  he  is  questioned  little  about  theological 
details.  He  is  given  the  right  hand  of  fellowship,  but 
he  is  bothered  little  with  creeds.  Moreover,  he  is 
helped  in  immediate  and  practical  ways.  If  he  is  hun- 
gry, he  is  fed ;  if  he  is  naked,  he  is  clothed ;  if  he  is  cold 
and  homeless,  he  gets  a  warm  place  to  sleep.  The  lead- 
ers of  the  movement  were  quick  to  recognize  that  you 
cannot  save  the  soul  of  a  man  in  physical  distress.  But 
there  is  yet  another  element  which  has  done  much 
to  insure  the  success  of  the  Salvation  Army,  —  the 
imaginative  appeal  of  its  militant  conception  of  Chris- 
tianity. It  is  a  body  of  soldiers,  fighting  the  battles 
of  Christ  and  His  Church.  This  spirit  of  comradeship, 
of  common  interest  in  a  cause  which  all  have  at  heart, 
is  expressed  in  the  outward  and  visible  form  of  military 
organization.  Music  and  marching  and  ordered  ranks 
and  discipline  appeal  to  the  understanding  of  the  sim- 
plest, and  to  the  emotions  of  the  most  callous  and  the 
most  degraded.  Who  can  hear  a  military  band  pass  by, 
with  its  stirring  music  of  brass  and  cymbals,  and  the 
sharp  rattle  of  its  drums,  without  feeling  a  quickening  of 
the  pulse  ?  Add  to  this  the  emotion  of  religious  ex- 
altation, and  you  have  one  great  secret  of  the  success  of 
the  Salvation  Army.  It  is  the  incarnation,  in  practical 
form,  of  the  spirit  of  the  familiar  hymn :  — 

The  Son  of  God  goes  forth  to  war, 

A  kingly  crown  to  gain, 
His  blood-red  banner  streams  afar  — 

Who  follows  in  His  train  ? 

By  keeping  the  Salvation  Army  in  mind  we  can  under- 
stand something  of  the  tremendous  appeal  of  the  great 
religious  upheavals  of  the  Middle  Ages  known  as  the 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL     117 

Crusades.  Beginning  in  the  eleventh  century,  many 
mighty  armies  were  gathered  together  to  fight  the 
battles  of  Christ ;  and  enthusiasm  to  join  these  armies 
and  to  take  a  personal  part  in  these  battles  swept  like 
wildfire  over  Europe.  The  contest  was  partly  sym- 
bolical and  spiritual,  as  in  modern  times,  but  it  was 
also  a  very  real  struggle  with  deadly  weapons  against 
a  valiant  foe ;  and  it  had  a  definite  concrete  object. 
The  holy  city  of  Jerusalem  was  in  the  hands  of  infidels, 
who  exalted  the  Crescent  and  trampled  upon  the  Cross. 
Shocking  stories  —  doubtless  often  exaggerated  —  of 
the  ill-treatment  of  pilgrims  and  of  the  profanation  of 
holy  places  in  the  East  added  fuel  to  the  flames  of  re- 
sentment. The  duty  of  pious  Christians  was  felt  to  be 
to  deliver  the  sacred  city  from  its  heathen  masters. 
To  a  people  whose  chief  interest  was  war,  and  before 
whom  the  fear  of  death  and  of  the  pains  of  hell  was 
constantly  present,  what  could  be  more  alluring  than 
a  contest  the  mere  participation  in  which  would  insure 
forgiveness  of  sin  and  the  prospect  of  salvation  ?  The 
pomp  and  ceremony  of  armed  expeditions,  the  waving 
banners,  the  glittering  armor,  the  serried  ranks  of  en- 
thusiastic volunteers,  must  have  made  a  profound 
appeal,  particularly  when  the  banner  of  the  Cross  was 
unfurled,  and  men  felt  that  minor  quarrels  were  to  be 
forgotten  in  the  defense  of  the  Kingdom  of  God  upon 
earth.  All  ranks  of  society  allied  themselves  with  the 
Crusading  armies.  It  was  no  aristocrat's  pilgrimage 
merely ;  the  poor  and  humble  had  their  share.  Even 
the  children  caught  the  general  enthusiasm,  and  in  a 
pathetically  ineffective  imitation  of  the  expeditions  of 
their  elders,  actually  started  for  the  beleaguered  city 


118  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

of  the  East.  Landed  possessions  were  forsaken,  for- 
tunes of  private  individuals  were  poured  into  the  gen- 
eral treasury,  the  ties  of  home  and  family  were  broken. 
One  old  Crusader,  Jean  de  Joinville,  says  of  his  depar- 
ture from  his  home,  "And  never  would  I  turn  my  eyes 
towards  Joinville  for  fear  my  heart  should  melt  within 
me  at  thought  of  the  fair  castle  I  was  leaving  behind, 
and  my  two  children/7  If  anything  were  needed  to 
exhibit  the  lofty  idealism  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Cru- 
sades, although  sometimes  smirched  with  baser  motives, 
would  furnish  it.  As  Bishop  Stubbs  says,  "They  were 
the  first  great  effort  of  medieval  life  to  go  beyond  the 
pursuit  of  selfish  and  isolated  ambitions;  they  were  the 
trial-feat  of  the  young  world,  essaying  to  use,  to  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  benefit  of  mankind,  the  arms  of 
its  new  knighthood/' 

The  story  of  these  expeditions,  which  set  out  with  such 
high  hopes  and  such  pomp  and  pageantry,  is  pitiful,  — 
a  tale  of  the  ravages  of  disease,  of  slaughter  and  famine, 
of  treachery  and  cruelty,  and  of  complete  failure  in  the 
great  object  at  which  they  aimed.  Into  the  details  of  this 
story  it  is  not  necessary  that  we  should  go.  The  city  of 
Jerusalem  was  indeed  captured  by  the  Christians,  some 
thirty  years  after  William  of  Normandy  came  to  the 
English  shores,  and  a  wise  and  noble  man,  Godfrey  of 
Bouillon,  was  placed  on  the  throne  of  the  newly  created 
kingdom  of  Jerusalem.  But  it  was  a  tottering  king- 
dom, at  best,  and  less  than  a  century  later  the  holy  city 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Saracens.  The  later  expedi- 
tions to  regain  it  never  achieved  the  measure  of  success 
which  the  earlier  one  had  attained ;  ambitions  for  con- 
quest, for  worldly  dominion,  and  the  petty  rivalries  of 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL     119 

those  who  should  have  stood  shoulder  to  shoulder  darken 
the  glory  of  the  later  Crusades.  Moreover,  they  cost  a 
fearful  price  in  blood  and  suffering.  But  unsuccessful, 
fantastic,  and  unpractical  as  the  whole  movement  was, 
there  was  nevertheless  something  very  fine  even  in 
its  Quixotic  idealism,  in  the  willingness  of  men  to  expose 
themselves,  for  the  sake  of  a  great  religious  ideal,  to 
every  hazard  of  fortune  which  life  can  hold. 

A  prominent  part  in  the  Crusades,  almost  from 
the  beginning,  was  taken  by  the  Knights  Templars,  the 
great  military  and  religious  order  founded  for  the  de- 
fense of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  in  Jerusalem,  during  the 
occupation  of  the  city  by  the  Christian  kings.  Its  mem- 
bers were  bound  by  strict  vows  of  poverty  and  chastity, 
and  subjected  to  religious  observances  almost  monastic 
in  character.  Their  chief  duty  was  to  strike  down  the 
enemies  of  the  Church,  never  paying  ransom  nor  asking 
for  mercy.  Valiant  fighters  they  were,  riding  with 
fanatical  courage  into  the  ranks  of  the  Saracens,  risk- 
ing everything  in  a  cause  which  they  knew  to  be  holy. 
Their  attack  on  Ascalon  was  characteristic  ;  they  forced 
their  way  into  the  heart  of  the  city,  with  their  foes  on 
every  hand,  fighting  desperately,  until  they  were  finally 
overcome  by  superior  numbers,  and  slain  in  cold  blood. 
Their  courage  was  equaled  by  their  simplicity,  —  at 
least  in  the  earlier  years  of  the  order.  They  shunned 
elaborate  ornamentation  on  their  horses  and  armor, 
and  were  distinguished  by  their  mantles  of  pure 
white,  typical  of  the  stainlessness  of  their  lives.  Upon 
these  white  mantles  they  later  placed  a  red  cross,  in 
token  of  the  holy  cause  which  they  had  espoused.  By 
these  insignia  they  are  best  known,  and  the  Red  Cross 


120  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

has  ever  since  stood  as  a  symbol  of  chivalrous  devotion 
to  the  cause  of  Christianity.  It  is  to-day  the  badge 
of  the  great  society  which  aims  to  relieve  the  sufferings 
of  the  sick  and  wounded,  but  its  true  significance  is 
not  always  realized.  Remembering  the  noble  aims 
and  the  self-sacrifice  of  the  order  of  Knights  Templars 
in  its  earlier  career,  we  may  look  with  sympathy  on  its 
misfortunes  in  the  later  evil  days,  when  men  grew  en- 
vious of  its  wealth  and  power,  and  crushed  it  with 
calumniations.  We  prefer  to  think  of  its  members  as 
St.  Bernard  described  them:  "All  their  trust  is  in  the 
Lord  of  Hosts,  and  in  fighting  for  His  cause  they  seek 
a  sure  victory,  or  a  Christian  and  an  honorable  death.7' 
The  devotion  of  the  military  life  to  the  service  of 
God,  exemplified  in  the  Crusades  and  in  the  activities 
of  such  organizations  as  the  Templars,  is  expressed  in 
imaginativ  form  in  the  legends  of  the  Holy  Grail.  The 
noblest  aspirations  of  medieval  chivalry  are  here  set 
forth  symbolically.  The  story  is  not  an  offshoot 
of  the  Crusades;  its  sources  lie  elsewhere,,  but -it  is  an- 
other manifestation  of  the  same  idealism  which  made 
the  Crusades  possible.  It  is.  vital  partly  because  it 
was  ja,  reflectiojL-of-the  age.  In  spite  of  great  variation 
of  incident,  it  is,  in  general,  marked  by  an  elevation  of 
tone  and  a  reverence  of  feeling  which  the  romances  too 

^•^»_^_^,^^aa^M^^^_  ____^^^*^**,~~mJ5uL^*f^ 

often  lack.  Knightly  prowess  is  here  inspired  by  other 
motives  than  the  smiles  of  a  lady;  and  the  ambition 
of  the  warrior  to  kill  as  many  of  his  fellow-beings  as 
possible  is  tempered  by  the  demands  of  religion  and 
humanity.  Much  that  is  fantastic  makes  its  appear- 
ance in  these  stories ;  the  characters  often  act  in  pro- 
vokingly  irrational  ways,  as  if  they  had  taken  leave  of 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  121 

their  common-sense.  Knight-errantry  here  appears, 
at  times,  more  absurd  than  ever.  But  this,  too,  was 
characteristic  of  the  age;  the  enthusiasts  who  took  the 
Cross  generally  had  no  clear  idea  of  their  precise  plan 
of  action;  there  was  too  little  hard-headed  business- 
like preparation  about  their  expeditions.  They  were 
led  on  by  a  mighty  impulse,  and  they  left  the  practical 
side  of  their  affairs  to  the  guidance  of  chance,  —  or, 
as  they  would  have  expressed  it,  to  the  will  of  God. 
They  did  not  believe  that  the  Lord  would  most  help 
those  who  help  themselves,  as  Beowulf  did;  they 
believed  that  He  would  give  strength  to  the  Right, 
whether  the  Right  had  kept  its  powder  dry  or  not. 
Hence  much  of  the  sickness  and  suffering,  the  famine 
and  wandering,  and  in  fact  the  ultimate  failure  of  the 
Crusades.  War  cannot  afford  to  be  unbusinesslike, 
and  the  slaughter  of  thousands  of  Christians  by  Mos- 
lem swords  must  ultimately  have  convinced  even  the 
most  dreamy  enthusiast  that  God  will  not  always 
give  the  victory  to  His  chosen  people.  But  if  poets 
often  conceived  their  allegories  no  more  clearly  than 
warriors  did  their  plans  of  campaign,  and  if  the  result,  in 
literature  in  life,  was  a  certain  vagueness  and  ineffective- 
ness, the  fault  is  not  so  serious  in  poetry.  The  effect  of  a  \ 
highly  imaginative  story  may  be  heightened  by  mystic  J 
unreality.  And  a  poet  of  romance  can  slay  a  thousand^ 
heathen  by  the  prowess  of  a  single  hero,  denying  the 
pagans  the  consolation  of  any  success  whatsoever.  We/ 
are  not  to  look,  then,  in  the  legends  of  the  Holy  Grail 
for  the  more  realistic  side  of  chivalry,  but  rather  for  its 
more  fantastic  manifestations.  But  we  are  to  remem- 
ber that  this  very  fantasy,  which  was  in  part  a  heritage 


122  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

from  the  Celtic  treasure-house  of  magic  and  mystery, 
was  also  the  expression  of  exaltation  of  feeling,  of  high 
striving  for  a  noble  ideal,  which  manifested  itself  in  the 
Crusades. 

What,  then,  is  the  story  of  the  Holy  Grail?  The 
question  is  difficult  to  answer.  Like  other  great 
mgdie^l  themes,  it  varies  much  in  the  hands  of  different 
story-tellers,  both  in  details  and  in  general  conception. 
There  is  the  usual  wealth  of  episodes,  following  one  an- 
other in  bewildering  succession.  And  these  episodes 
are  rearranged,  in  the  different  romances,  with  kalei- 
doscopic variety.  Even  among  the  principal  incidents 
there  is  little  consistency,  there  is  no  one  story  which 
can  be  called  the  legend  of  the  Holy  Grail.  As  time 
C'  went  on,  one  version  was  displaced  by  another,  one  hero 
\  was  thrust  aside  to  make  way  for  a  rival,  the  whole  tone 
|  and  import  of  the  narrative  changed.  These  alterations 
are  interesting  because  they  reflect  corresponding 
changes  in  the  ideal  of  the  spiritual  warrior,  and  they 
must  be  carefully  considered.  First,  however,  it  is  best 
to  take  one  version  as  a  point  of  departure,  to  observe 
the  characteristics  of  one  masterly  telling  of  the  tale  in 
its  earlier  form,  which  may  then  be  contrasted  with 
another  version  reflecting  the  spirit  of  a  later  age. 

The  finest  single  conception  of  the  story  is  that  by  the 
German  poet,  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  one  of  the 
greatest  of  all  medieval  writers,  who  flourished  about 
the  time  when  Arthurian  romance  in  Western  Europe 
was  at  its  high-water  mark.  It  is  also  "on  the  whole 
the  most  coherent  and  complete  version  of  the  hero's 
career  which  we  possess,"  and  according  to  Alfred  Nutt, 
one  of  the  scholars  who  has  best  explained  the  growth 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  123 

of  the  legend,  "the  most  interesting  individual  work  of 
modern  European  literature  prior  to  the  '  Divina  Corn- 
media/^  There  can  hardly  be  a  better  choice  for  our 
purposes  than  this.  Let  us,  then,  in  the  beginning, 
follow  the  exploits  of  Parzif  al,  or  Percival,  as  we  may 
callTimTTor  convenience  in  English,  passing  over  de- 
tails almost  completely,  and  looking  only  at  the  more 
striking  scenes;  in"  order  that  the  main  outlines  of  the 
story  as  a  whole  may  not  be  obscured. 

Percival  is  brought  up  as  a  child  by  his  mother  in 
the  depths  of  the  forest,  whither  she  has  fled  after  his 
father's  death.  By  secluding  him  from  the  world,  and 
telling  him  nothing  of  the  customs  of  knighthood,  she 
hopes  to  keep  him  from  the  dangers  which  would  other- 
wise beset  him  in  his  manhood.  But  one  day  he  meets  . 
by  chance  a  band  of  knights,  clad  in  glittering  armor, 
whom  he  takes  for  gods,  so  magnificent  is  their  ap- 
pearance. They  tell  him,  if  he  would  be  a  knight,  to 
seek  out  the  court  of  King  Arthur,  and  enter  his  noble 
company.  Reluctantly  his  mother  lets  him  go,  fore- 
seeing that  she  will  lose  him  forever.  As  he  disappears 
in  the  distance,  she  falls  dead,  her  heart  broken  at  the 
loss  of  her  son.  But  Percival  rides  on,  until  he  comes 
to  the  court  of  King  Arthur,  where  he  is  kindly  received, 
in  spite  of  the  uncouthness  of  his  appearance.  His 
first  exploit  is  the  slaying  of  a  mighty  champion  known 
as  the  Red  Knight.  Later  he  receives  instruction  in 
chivalric  courtesy  from  a  wise  and  friendly  knight  named 
Gurnemanz.  He  is  cautioned  to  ask  no  questions,  to 
restrain  his  curiosity.  The  true  knight,  he  is  told, 
should  not  be  inquisitive. 

After  various  exploits,  he  weds  Queen  Conduiramur, 


124  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

but  ere  long  he  feels  a  desire  to  return  to  his  mother, 
of  whose  death  he  knows  nothing,  and  so  he  leaves  his 
bride.  As  he  rides  forth,  he  comes  to  a  lake,  in  the 
waters  of  which  a  richly  dressed  man  is  fishing.  Perci- 
val  begs  of  him  a  lodging  for  the  night,  and  the  fisher- 
man invites  him  to  be  his  guest.  Arrived  at  the  castle, 
the  youth  is  hospitably  received,  and  everything  pos- 
sible is  done  to  make  him  comfortable.  In  the  evening 
he  is  shown  into  a  magnificent  hall,  lighted  with  many 
candles,  and  filled  with  a  noble  assemblage  of  knights. 
But  the  Fisher  King,  the  lord  of  the  castle,  whom 
Percival  had  earlier  seen  on  the  lake,  lies  on  a  couch, 
suffering  sorely  from  a  grievous  wound.  He  is  wrapped 
in  furs,  and  shivers  before  a  great  fire.  Suddenly  a 
wonderful  thing  happens ;  a  squire  comes  into  the  hall 
I  carrying  a  lance,  from  the  point  of  which  there  continu- 
lally  flow  drops  of  blood.  As  he  passes  through  the 
company,  all  break  out  in  loud  lamentations.  After 
he  has  retired,  a  procession  of  damsels  enters,  one  of 
whom  bears  aloft  on  a  cushion  the  Holy  Grail,  a  glit- 
tering stone,  by  means  of  which  the  whole  company  are 
miraculously  fed.  The  Fisher  King  presents  Percival 
with  a  costly  sword.  The  youth  desires  to  ask  the 
meaning  of  the  things  that  he  has  seen,  but  he  remembers 
the  instructions  of  his  master,  Gurnemanz,  and  is  silent. 
On  the  following  morning,  when  he  awakes  from  a 
troubled  sleep  in  the  magnificent  chamber  which  has 
been  assigned  to  him,  he  is  surprised  to  find  the  castle 
deserted.  So  he  mounts  his  steed  and  rides  away. 
As  he  leaves,  the  drawbridge  is  sharply  closed  behind 
him,  and  a  voice  reviles  him  for  having  failed  to  ask 
about  the  wonders  which  he  saw  in  the  castle.  A  little 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  125 

farther  on  he  meets  a  lady  who  tells  him  that  he  has 
been  in  the  castle  of  the  Grail,  and  curses  him  for  a 
false  knight  because  he  has  not  asked  about  the  trouble 
of  his  host,  and  the  mystery  of  the  Grail  and  the  Bleed- 
ing Lance. 

After  various  adventures,  Percival  comes  again  to 
the  court  of  King  Arthur,  where  he  is  received  with  all 
honor.     But   suddenly  the  hideous  woman  Kondrie,'; 
the  messenger  of  the  Grail,  bursts  into  the  hall,  andt 
shames  Percival  before  them  all,  since  he  had  asked  no  ! 
questions  in  the  enchanted  castle  of  Montsalvatch. 

But  weeping  she  gazed  about  her,  and  she  cried  as  the  tear-drops 

fell, 

"  Ah,  woe  unto  thee  !  Montsalvatch,  thou  dwelling  and  goal  of  grief, 
Since  no  man  hath  pity  on  thee,  or  bringeth  thy  woe  relief." 

For  five  years  Percival  seeks  for  the  Castle  of  the 
Grail,  his  soul  full  of  revolt  and  despair.  On  Good 
Friday  he  is  rebuked  by  a  pious  knight  for  riding  under 
armor  on  the  day  of  Christ's  death,  and  sent  to  a  her- 
mit for  confession.  He  tells  the  holy  man  that  he  is  in 
great  trouble  because  he  is  parted  from  his  wife,  and 
because  he  has  failed  to  ask  the  question  in  the  castle. 
The  hermit  replies  that  they  only  find  the  Grail  whom 
God  directs  thither.  He  tells  Percival  more  about  the 
Grail  itself,  —  that  it  is  a  wonderful  stone,  upon  which, 
every  Good  Friday,  a  dove  descending  from  Heaven 
lays  the  consecrated  Host.  It  is  guarded  by  a  body 
of  chosen  knights,  who  must  be  of  spotless  purity 
of  life.  Their  King,  the  Fisher,  had  given  himself  up 
to  carnal  love,  and  been  wounded  in  consequence 
by  a  poisoned  spear.  It  has  been  his  fate  to  suffer 
agony  until  a  hero  comes  to  his  castle,  and  asks 


126  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

about  his  trouble.  After  receiving  absolution,  Percival 
returns  to  Arthur's  court  once  more.  The  messenger 
Kondrie  comes  to  him  a  second  time,  telling  him  that 
he  is  to  be  the  new  Keeper  of  the  Grail.  He  goes 
to  the  castle,  asks  the  question,  heals  the  Fisher  King, 
and  becomes  guardian  of  the  Grail.  He  is  restored 
to  his  wife,  and  his  son  is  Lohengrin,  Knight  of  the 
Swan. 

I  All  this  is  truly  as  irrational  and  fantastic  as  a  fairy- 
1  tale.  This  Fisher  King,  suffering  from  a  wouijd  which 
can  be  healed  only  by  the  asking  of  a  question,  this 
spear  continually  dripping  blood,  this  stone  which  feeds 
a  whole  company  of  people,  this  strange  castle,  filled 
at  night  with  feasting  and  revelry,  with  brave  knights 
and  busy  servants,  and  in  the  morning  silent  and  de- 
serted save  for  a  spectral  voice  ringing  out  over  the 
battlements,  —  all  these  things  are  the  stuff  that  dreams 
are  made  of.  They  accord  ill  with  such  a  religious 
feature  as  the  descent  of  the  dove,  the  symbol  of  the 
Holy  Ghost;  and  the  sanctity  of  the  consecrated  Host 
i  seems  hardly  in  keeping  with  the  practical  working  of 
Wi  automatic  food-provider,  such  as  the  Grail  seems 
to  be.  How  strange,  too,  is  the  verdict  of  the  tale  on 
<the  hero's  action  !  He  is  constantly  blamed  for  having 
failed  to  ask  the  question,  but  his  fault  seems  slight,  — 
it  may  even  be  called  a  virtue,  since  it  springs  in  the 
beginning  from  his  desire  to  pay  due  heed  to  the  demands 
of  courtesy.  How  are  all  these  incongruities  and  fan- 
tastic motives  to  be  explained? 

The  story  was,  in  all  probability,  originally  purely 
pagan,  wholly  unconnected  with  Christian  symbolism. 
If  we  could  get  back  to  its  beginnings,  we  should  dis- 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  127 

cover  that  it  has  grown,  to  a  large  extent,  out  of  the 
weird  imagination  of  the  Celts.  They  were  fond  of 
marvelous  adventures,  which  could  be  performed  only 
by  fantastic  devices.  So  this  has  perhaps  developed 
from  tales  in  which  a  young  hero  penetrated  into  a 
castle  and  freed  a  kinsman  from  enchantment  by  ask- 
ing a  magic  question,  or  got  possession  of  a  wonder- 
working symbol  of  plenty,  which,  when  rightly  used, 
would  bring  prosperity  to  all  those  about  it.  The 
Grail  was  once,  in  all  likelihood,  a  pagan  talisman  of 
plenty,  and  not  a  holy  cup  at  all.  In  Celtic  stories 
there  are  all  sorts  of  ways  to  break  the  spells  which 
fetter  beings  who  have  been  bewitched  — sometimes 
highly  fantastic  ways,  like  decapitation.  The  head  of 
a  hideous  dwarf  is  cut  off,  and  he  stands  forth  in  his 
own  shape  as  a  brave  knight.  Gawain,  we  remember, 
married  a  loathly  lady,  and  agreed  to  let  her  have  the 
say  in  their  family  affairs,  whereupon  the  spell  was 
broken,  and  she  was  transformed  into  a  woman  of  sur- 
passing beauty.  A  kiss  has  equal  potency  in  dispelling 
the  effects  of  magic.  In  a  region  where  things  happen 
as  strangely  as  this,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  asking 
of  the  proper  question  should  not  heal  a  sick  man,  or 
break  the  spell  lying  on  an  enchanted  palace.  Some- 
times questioning  is  the  reverse  of  judicious;  in  the 
story  of  Lohengrin  the  lady  loses  her  supernatural 
husband  because  she  asks  him  whence  he  came  in  the 
beginning.  Fairyland  is  a  most  illogical  place,  as  we] 
have  seen,  —  or  rather  it  is  a  place  with  a  queer 
of  its  own,  like  the  wonderful  country  the  little 
found  on  the  other  side  of  the  looking-glass.  V^ 

It  is  possible  that  the  Grail  story  is  to  be  traced  ulti- 


128  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

mately  to  ritualistic  observances  in  honor  of  a  god  of 
fertility  or  vegetation.  In  certain  versions  of  the  tale, 
the  asking  of  the  magic  question  causes  the  country  to 
burst  into  bloom,  and  the  inhabitants  bless  the  hero  for 
having  freed  them  from  the  curse  of  barren  fields  and 
sterile  trees.  The  wounded  king  may  then  have  been 
originally  the  god  of  fertility  himself,  Adonis  or  Tammuz, 
or  his  hierophant,  and  the  youthful  knight  who  visits 
the  castle  an  initiate  into  the  secret  and  symbolic  rites 
of  nature- worship.  If  this  be  the  case,  these  rites, 
which  bore  analogies  to  the  communion  instituted  in 
memory  of  the  Last  Supper  of  Christ,  must  later 
have  been  brought  into  conformity  with  Christian  ob- 
servances, and  the  originally  pagan  character  of  the 
ceremonial  completely  forgotten.  There  would  appear 
to  be  particularly  clear  evidences  of  this  nature-cult 
in  the  adventures  of  Gawain  at  the  Grail  Castle,  as  told 
by  one  of  the  continuators  of  Chretien's  '  Perceval/ 
Gawain  partly  succeeds  in  breaking  the  spell  which  lies 
upon  castle  and  land,  but  not  completely.  Discussion 
of  this  matter  must  rest  very  largely  upon  conjecture ; 
no  satisfactory  proof  of  the  " nature-ritual  theory"  is 
likely  to  be  forthcoming.  It  is  highly  probable,  how- 
ever, that  Gawain  was  the  first  of  the  knights  of  Arthur 
to  figure  as  the  Grail  hero,  that  even  Percival  was  only 
later  made  the  chosen  champion.  The  character  of 
Gawain,  like  that  of  other  Arthurian  heroes,  degenerated 
in  later  days,  until  he  appears  in  Malory  and  Tennyson 
as  anything  but  the  ideal  knight.  But  in  the  earlier 
romances  he  is  the  incarnation  of  perfect  chivalry. 

A  later  age  rationalizes  the  absurdities  in  these  tales, 
and  turns  them  to  account  for  its  own  ends.     The  wound 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  129 

of  the  Fisher  King  was  probably  originally  due  to  his 
misfortune,  not  his  fault,  but  the  story  which  has  just 
been  outlined  makes  it  a  punishment  for  broken  vows, 
for  fighting  in  the  cause  of  unlawful  love.  Similarly, 
the  failure  of  the  youth  to  ask  the  question  is  attributed 
by  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  to  lack  of  human  sym- 
pathy. In  later  years,  after  Percival  has  had  experi- 
ence with  the  sorrows  which  life  brings,  he  can  truly 
feel  for  the  wounded  monarch  in  his  agony  of  pain,  and 
heal  him  by  the  force  of  human  compassion.  Thus  a 
master-poet  has  softened  and  refined  the  cruder  motives 
of  the  old  story,  and  made  it  point  a  profound  moral 
lesson.  Time  brings  these  transformations  to  popular 
story,  as  it  relieves  the  harsh  outlines  of  ancient  castles, 
overlaying  them  with  verdure,  and  giving  them  a  fresher 
and  more  delicate  charm. 

More  important  than  the  interpretation  of  the  ab- 
surdities of  the  story  in  terms  of  the  development  of 
human  character  is  the  Christian  symbolism.  Th# 
sacred  object,  the  Grail,  is  guarded  by  those  divineljA 
chosen  for  such  service,  and  is  itself  given  miraculous! 
power  by  the  direct  interposition  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  1 
The  later  the  story,  the  more  the  religious  element  is 
emphasized.  That  the  Grail  had  been  a  pagan  talisman 
of  plenty  was  forgotten,  and  it  was  identified  as  the 
cup  in  which  the  blood  of  Christ  was  caught  after  the 
Crucifixion,  or  with  a  vessel  used  by  him  at  the  Last 
Supper.  Poets  took  delight  in  elaborating  the  early 
history  of  the  sacred  chalice,  before  it  was  finally  de- 
posited in  the  Grail  Castle,  and  in  developing  a  mass  of 
legend  as  detailed,  but  not  as  interesting,  as  the  story  of 
its  achievement  by  the  destined  knight. 


130  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

The  cup,  the  cup  itself,  from  which  our  Lord 
Drank  at  the  last  sad  supper  with  his  own. 
This,  from  the  blessed  land  of  Aromat  — 
After  the  day  of  darkness,  when  the  dead 
Went  wandering  o'er  Moriah  —  the  good  saint 
Arimathsean  Joseph,  journeying  brought 
To  Glastonbury,  where  the  winter  thorn 
Blossoms  at  Christmas,  mindful  of  our  Lord. 
And  there  awhile  it  bode ;  and  if  a  man 
Could  touch  or  see  it,  he  was  heal'd  at  once 
By  faith,  of  all  his  ills.     But  then  the  times 
Grew  to  such  evil  that  the  holy  cup 
Was  caught  away  to  heaven,  and  disappeared. 

The  symbol  of  the  holy  chalice  thus  came  to  stand  for 
the  religious  aspirations  of  the  Knights  of  the  Round 
Table,  and  the  achievement  of  the  Grail  for  the  triumph 
of  a  life  of  purity  and  of  devotion  to  high  ideals.  This 
religious  element,  then,  brought  with  it  an  entire  change 
in  the  conception  of  the  story.  What  had  in  the  begin- 
ning been  won  by  valor,  was  now  unattainable  without 
virtue.  What  was  originally  a  quest  for  revenge,  or 
for  the  breaking  of  enchantment,  or  for  the  acquisition 
of  wonder-working  objects,  now  became  a  supreme  effort 
to  attain  a  sacred  relic  by  means  of  which  man  might  be 
brought  face  to  face  with  manifestations  of  Divine 
power  on  earth. 

Strangely  enough,  this  insistence  on  the  religious 
element  in  the  story  ultimately  weakened  its  vigor,  and 
injured  its  artistic  completeness.  The  chief  stress  was 
laid  in  the  later  versions  on  the  absolute  holiness  of  the 
knight  who  was  to  achieve  the  Grail.  He  became  a 
saint,  but  he  ceased  to  be  a  normal  man.  In  the  story 
which  we  have  just  considered,  the  successful  outcome 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  131 

of  the  undertaking  depended,  as  we  have  seen,  upon  the 
gaining  of  human  sympathy.  The  reason  why  Perci- 
val  became  keeper  of  the  Grail  at  the  end  was  because 
he  had  progressed,  through  misfortune  and  varied  expe- 
rience of  life,  to  such  a  compassionate  understanding  of 
human  suffering  that  he  could  truly  ask  the  Fisher  King 
about  his  trouble  without  being  moved  by  mere  curios- 
ity. This  is  an  ethical  rather  than  a  religious  concep- 
tion, and  yet  we  should  all  agree  that  a  religious  expe- 
rience which  brought  such  a  result  was  well  worth  while. 
But  such  a  view  of  the  duty  of  a  man  towards  his  fellow- 
men  did  not  satisfy  the  sterner  spirits  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  into  whose  hands  the  story  of  the  Grail  ultimately 
passed.  To  them  religion  did  not  mean  the  use  of  all 
the  faculties  of  man  in  a  sensible  and  normal  way ;  it 
meant  the  total  suppression  of  all  instincts  which  might 
be  turned  to  baser  ends.  The  truly  holy  man  was  con- 
ceived to  be  the  one  who  lived  for  religion  alone, 
and  shut  all  other  thoughts  out  of  his  heart.  The  love 
of  wife  and  child,  all  the  beauty  and  romance  of  life,  was 
to  be  disregarded,  and  religious  exaltation  was  to  take 
their  place.  Sympathy  with  the  present  sufferings  of 
mankind  was  to  be  subordinated  to  sympathy  with  the 
agonies  of  Christ  on  the  Cross.  This  ascetic  concep- 
tion of  life,  which  came  partly  as  a  reaction  against 
laxity  in  religious  matters,  affected  profoundly  the  great 
symbolical  story  of  the  Grail  Knight.  His  whole 
character  came  to  be  differently  imagined.  Great  stress 
Had  always  been  laid  on  his  purity,  ever  since  the  time 
when  the  Grail  had  been  conceived  as  a  holy  object, 
but  this  quality  was  now  insisted  upon  in  the  narrowest 
way.  The  hero  became  a  sort  of  recluse  in  armor, 


132  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

fighting  his  way  through  a  sinful  world,  to  the  demands 
of  which  he  paid  little  heed,  but  keeping  always  before 
him  a  glorious  vision,  —  Christ's  blood  streaming  in  the 
firmament  in  the  chalice  of  the  Grail.  To  this  perfection 
Percival  could  not  attain,  —  his  achievements  were  too 
worldly  in  men's  eyes;  and  so  a  new  figure  was  created, 
the  " maiden  knight"  Galahad. 

Tennyson  has  summed  up  the  character  of  this  hero 
in  one  of  the  most  striking  and  beautiful  of  his  early 
poems.  With  the  ecstasy  of  the  mystic  and  the  single- 
heartedness  of  the  fanatic,  Galahad  presses  through 
battle  hearing  only  the  sound  of  hymns ;  he  sees  homes 
and  hearthstones  about  him,  but  he  rides  ever  madly  on 
to  the  goal. 

When  on  my  goodly  charger  borne 

Thro'  dreaming  towns  I  go, 
The  cock  crows  ere  the  Christmas  morn, 

The  streets  are  dumb  with  snow. 
The  tempest  crackles  on  the  leads, 

And,  ringing,  springs  from  brand  and  mail ; 
But  o'er  the  dark  a  glory  spreads, 

And  gilds  the  driving  hail. 
I  leave  the  plain,  I  climb  the  height ; 

No  branchy  thicket  shelter  yields ; 
But  blessed  forms  in  whistling  storms 

Fly  o'er  waste  fens  and  windy  fields. 


The  clouds  are  broken  in  the  sky, 
And  thro'  the  mountain-walls 

A  rolling  organ-harmony 

Swells  up  and  shakes  and  falls. 

Then  move  the  trees,  the  copses  nod, 
Wings  flutter,  voices  hover  clear: 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL     133 

'  0  just  and  faithful  knight  of  God. 

Ride  on  !  the  prize  is  near. ' 
So  pass  I  hostel,  hall,  and  grange ; 

By  bridge  and  ford,  by  park  and  pale, 
All-arm'd  I  ride,  whatever  betide, 

Until  I  find  the  Holy  Grail. 

This,  then,  is  the  spirit  of  the  hero  of  the  later  versions 
of  the  story,  of  Galahad  as  contrasted  to  Percival,  of  the 
man  of  ascetic  purity  and  narrow  singleness  of  vision, 
rather  than  of  the  man  who  comes  through  knowledge 
of  sin  to  a  truer  consciousness  of  his  relations  to  his 
fellow-men. 

This  difference  between  the  earlier  and  the  later  con- 
ceptions of  the  Grail  Knight  is  well  seen  in  his  relations 
to  women.  The  romances  in  general,  as  we  have  seen  in 
the  last  lecture,  were  not  what  we  should  call  moral; 
they  often  exalted  illicit  love.  But  their  recognition  of 
the  part  which  woman  ought  to  play  in  the  life  of  man, 
even  if  it  was  sometimes  fantastically  conceived,  accord- 
ing to  the  artificial  code  of  chivalry,  nevertheless  repre- 
sented an  advance  over  the  ideals  of  the  age  preceding. 
In  the  story  of  Percival,  in  the  form  which  has  just 
been  outlined,  the  hero  is  married.  In  the  excitements 
of  the  world,  he  neglected  the  duties  which  he  owed 
to  his  wife,  but,  at  the  end,  in  his  confession  to  the 
hermit,  he  felt  the  necessity  of  her  love,  and  the  part 
that  wedlock  ought  to  play  in  his  life.  The  Fisher  King 
was  punished  because,  while  under  a  vow  to  remain  pure 
in  heart,  he  had  loved  unlawfully.  Percival  was  pun- 
ished partly  because  he  had  treated  with  neglect  his 
wife  and  the  mother  of  his  children.  When  he  returns 
to  her  he  is  not  less  worthy  to  be  the  Keeper  of  the  Grail 


134  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

because  he  is  at  her  side,  but  more  worthy.  Galahad, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  held  more  holy  because  he  has 
never  known  the  love  of  woman.  He  has  never  felt 
the  touch  of  a  maiden's  hand  within  his  own.  For  this 
reason  he  comes  to  be  exalted  above  Percival,  and  espe- 
cially above  such  knights  as  Gawain,  the  typical  squire 
of  dames,  whose  many  love-adventures  will  not  bear 
very  close  scrutiny,  and  as  Launcelot,  the  unlawful  lover 
of  Queen  Guinevere.  These  knights  set  out  on  the 
Quest,  but  they  are  not  virtuous  enough  for  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  Grail.  Launcelot  does  indeed  penetrate 
into  the  castle,  but  in  the  ecstasy  of  his  vision  he  realizes 
his  own  unworthiness.  In  these  later  Grail  stories, 
then,  love  is  really  made  subordinate  to  asceticism,  —  a 
curious  transformation  for  romance  !  It  is  easy  to  see 
how  this  might  have  come  about,  however,  —  even  in 
the  earlier  form  of  the  story  the  Templars,  who  guard 
the  sacred  chalice  in  the  castle,  are  forbidden  to  marry, 
and  great  stress  is  laid  on  their  personal  purity.  But 
there  was  no  such  rigid  insistence  on  celibacy  for  the 
Keeper  of  the  Grail ;  he  was  free  to  marry  if  he  chose. 
Ultimately,  on  the  other  hand,  the  chosen  knight  gets 
to  be  a  sexless  abstraction,  a  bloodless  incarnation  of 
holiness.  Medieval  asceticism  indeed  laid  its  finger 
heavily  on  the  highest  romantic  ideal  of  the  age  of 
chivalry.  Instead  of  striving  to  correct  the  evils  of  the 
age  by  preaching  a  broad  and  tolerant  view  of  love  and 
marriage,  it  rushed  to  the  opposite  extreme,  and  sought 
to  shrivel  up  all  the  beauty  and  holiness  of  the  love  of 
woman  in  the  white  fire  of  its  religious  ardor. 

Modern  versions  of  medieval  legends  sometimes  give 
a  wholly  false  idea  of  the  attitude  of  the  Church  in  the 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  135 

Middle  Ages  towards  earthly  love.  In  Maeterlinck's 
poetic  drama  ( Sister  Beatrice/  the  Virgin  Mother 
herself  descends  to  earth  and  assumes  the  guise  of  the 
erring  nun,  who  has  left  the  convent  for  the  love  of 
Prince  Bellidor.  The  other  sisters  do  not  know  that 
any  change  has  taken  place.  Long  after,  broken  in 
body  and  spirit  by  the  faithlessness  of  her  lover  and  the 
cruelty  of  the  world,  Sister  Beatrice  creeps  back  to  the 
convent  once  more,  and  discovers  the  miracle  that  has 
taken  place  in  her  absence.  Because  of  the  purity  of 
her  affection  for  Prince  Bellidor,  her  sin  and  her  deser- 
tion have  been  forgiven  her.  The  point  of  the  whole 
play  is  summed  up  in  the  Virgin's  own  words :  — 

There  is  no  sin  that  lives 

If  love  have  vigil  kept ; 
There  is  no  soul  that  dies, 

If  love  but  once  have  wept. 

But  this  is  thoroughly  foreign  to  the  spirit  of  the 
medieval  church,  —  no  writer  of  those  days,  surely, 
would  have  attributed  such  words  as  these  to  the  Vir- 
gin. It  is  interesting  to  compare  with  Maeterlinck's 
play  its  source,  the  Middle  Dutch  legend  of  Beatrice, 
written  in  the  fourteenth  century,  which  may  be  read 
in  a  graceful  modern  English  translation.1  In  this 
version  of  the  story,  the  Virgin  takes  the  place  of  Bea- 
trice, because  the  nun  had  always  been  faithful  in  her 
service.  The  miracle  is  here  a  reward  for  devotion  to 
the  Mother  of  God,  not  a  sign  that  Heaven  has  pardoned 
an  evil  act  through  the  purity  of  feeling  which  prompted 
it.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  a  nun  unfaithful  to  her  vows 

1  Beatrice,  a  Legend  of  Our  Lady,  translated  by  Harold  De  Wolf 
Fuller.     (Cambridge,  1909.) 


136  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

might  be  forgiven  by  the  Church  because  of  her  love 
for  the  Virgin,  but  she  would  never  have  been  forgiven 
because  of  her  passion  for  an  earthly  lover,  however 
pure  such  a  passion  might  have  been. 

The  earlier  form  of  the  Grail  story,  with  Percival  as 
the  hero,  which  was  told  so  exquisitely  by  the  early 
German  master  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  has  been 
made  familiar  in  modern  times  by  the  genius  of  Richard 
Wagner.  His  music-drama  '  Parsifal '  is  deeply  religious 
in  tone,  yet  it  brings  out  much  the  same  ethical  lesson 
as  its  prototype,  —  that  true  sympathy  with  suffering 
must  come  from  bitter  experience.  There  is  much  in 
Wagner's  work  which  represents  an  advance  over  the 
version  of  eight  centuries  earlier,  —  a  simpler  and  more 
coherent  form,  and  a  deeper  spiritual  significance.  The 
German  people  may  well  be  proud  to  have  in  their 
national  literature  two  such  lofty  conceptions  of  the 
great  theme  of  the  Holy  Grail.  To  the  English-speak- 
ing peoples,  on  the  other  hand,  the  later  version  of  the 
tale  is  better  known.  In  his  '  Idylls  of  the  King/  as  in 
the  early  poem  which  has  just  been  quoted,  Tennyson 
celebrated  Galahad  as  the  successful  knight,  but  with- 
out essentially  altering  his  character.  William  Morris, 
too,  made  Galahad  put  love  out  of  his  heart,  and  conquer 
in  the  end,  after  all  others  had  failed,  through  religious 
devotion  and  purity  of  life.  In  the  famous  mural 
paintings  in  the  Boston  Public  Library,  Abbey  has  given 
the  place  of  honor  to  the  red-robed  maiden  knight,  and 
he,  too,  has  shown  him  leaving  his  bride,  a  pathetic  little 
figure  in  her  wreath  of  roses,  for  the  greater  blessedness 
of  the  search  for  the  Grail.  Deeply  mystic  is  the  beau- 
tiful 'Quest  of  the  SangraaP  by  Stephen  Hawker,  an 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  137 

English  clergyman  who  later  became  a  Roman  Catholic. 
In  this,  as  perhaps  might  be  expected,  the  ascetic  note 
_Js  again  emphasized. 

The  prevalence  of  this  general  conception  of  the  story 
in  modern  English  poetry  is  largely  due  to  the  influence 
of  Sir  Thomas  Malory.  His  'Morte  Darthur/  written 
over  three  centuries  later  than  the  great  German  ver- 
sion which  has  just  been  outlined,  may  well  stand  as 
presenting  the  later  ideal  of  the  Grail  hero,  an  ideal 
developed,  as  we  have  seen,  under  monkish  influences. 
Malory's  story  of  the  quest  was  not  original;  it  was 
copied  from  a  French  romance  in  prose,  in  which  some 
man  of  lofty  but  narrow  religious  views  had  made  the 
hero  the  incarnation  of  physical  purity,  the  purity 
which  comes  from  the  repression  of  natural  instincts. 
The  Galahad  that  Sir  Thomas  puts  before  us  is  really 
not  his  own  creation,  then.  He  was  a  translator  rather 
than  a  story-teller ;  his  great  contribution  was  in  making 
the  Arthurian  stories  accessible  to  his  countrymen  in 
picturesque  and  melodious  English  prose.  He  did  not 
give  his  work  any  characteristically  English  coloring, 
nor  did  he  attempt  to  set  forth  specifically  English  views. 
But  he  produced  an  English  classic,  which  has  become 
the  great  storehouse  of  Arthurian  romance  for  those 
whose  mother-tongue  is  English.  It  is  thus  partly  due 
to  accident  that  the  ascetic  conception  of  the  Grail 
hero  has  become  most  familiar  to  English  readers,  and 
not  because  this  conception  was  most  in  accord  with  the 
ideals  of  their  forefathers.  Had  Malory  happened  to 
have  before  him  an  earlier  form  of  the  tale,  matters 
might  have  been  different.  His  whole  rendering  of  the 
Arthurian  story,  however,  is  like  an  Indian  summer  of 


138  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  age  of  chivalry.  At  the  time  of  the  Discovery  of 
America,  when  his  book  was  gaining  its  earliest  popu- 
larity, the  old  feudal  institutions  were  passing,  and  Eng- 
lish literature  was  beginning  to  reflect  the  spirit  of  a 
newer  age,  the  Renaissance.  The  'Morte  Darthur'  is 
one  of  the  last  leaves  on  the  tree  of  medieval  romance, 
splendidly  colored,  it  is  true,  but  already  withering,  a 
mere  relic  of  the  glory  of  the  vanished  springtime. 

The  selfishness  in  the  character  of  Galahad  was  ap- 
parently felt  by  Lowell  to  such  a  degree  that  he  boldly 
departed  from  precedent  and  chose  as  the  hero  of  his 
version  of  the  Grail  legend  Sir  Launfal,  a  minor  figure 
of  Arthurian  romance.  In  this  finely  conceived  poem, 
Lowell  attacked  the  self-centered  pride,  the  utter  for- 
getfulness  of  others,  which  accompanies  the  deep  reli- 
gious ecstasy  of  the  later  Grail  questers.  In  the  vision 
which  comes  to  Sir  Launfal  as  he  lies  asleep,  he  sees  him- 
self flashing  forth  in  his  unscarred  mail  in  the  pride  of 
his  youth,  bound  on  a  holy  mission,  but  with  no  real 
charity  for  the  leper  crouching  at  his  gate.  Then,  in 
old  age,  having  failed  in  his  search  for  the  sacred  vessel, 
he  comes,  like  Percival,  to  a  true  sympathy  with  the 
afflicted  man,  and  he  breaks  with  him  his  last  crust  of 
bread,  and  fills  the  cup  for  him  at  the  icy  stream.  On 
a  sudden,  the  leper  stands  up  glorified,  as  Christ  indeed, 
and  in  the  words  which  he  speaks  to  Launfal  we  know 
that  the  knight  has  at  last  been  successful  in  his  quest. 

"  Lo,  it  is  I,  be  not  afraid  ! 
In  many  climes,  without  avail, 
Thou  hast  spent  thy  life  for  the  Holy  Grail ; 
Behold,  it  is  here,  —  this  cup  which  thou 
Didst  fill  at  the  streamlet  for  me  but  now : 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL     139 

This  crust  is  my  body  broken  for  thee, 

This  water  His  blood  that  died  on  the  tree ; 

The  Holy  Supper  is  kept,  indeed, 

In  whatso  we  share  with  another's  need ; 

Not  what  we  give,  but  what  we  share, 

For  the  gift  without  the  giver  is  bare ; 

Who  gives  himself  with  his  alms  feeds  three,  — 

Himself,  his  hungering  neighbor,  and  Me." 

The  medieval  legends  of  the  Holy  Grail  often  repre- 
sent, then,  a  short-sighted  religious  ideal,  and  a  fantastic 
and  unpractical  notion  of  its  attainment.  And  yet,  | 
in  spite  of  all  this,  there  is  something  very  inspiring 
about  their  sincerity  and  enthusiasm.  We  can  forgive 
the  fanatic  his  blindness  to  larger  issues,  we  can  for- 
give the  mystic  his  struggle  for  a  perfection  which  is  to 
affect  himself  alone,  in  remembering  their  single-hearted 
devotion  to  a  lofty  aim.  It  is  better,  surely,  to  have 
a  narrow  or  an  unpractical  religion,  than  to  have  no 
religion  at  all,  or  a  religion  which  is  lukewarm  and  un- 
convinced. The  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  even  in  its 
narrower  conception,  may  have  a  significance  and  a 
message  for  our  own  age,  which  is  often  said  to  be  lack- 
ing in  true  religious  enthusiasm,  which  is  often  called 
a  day  of  doubt  and  questioning,  a  day  of  too  little 
simple  faith  and  genuine  emotion.  We  are  so  encom- 
passed about  on  every  hand  by  the  interests  of  a  strenu- 
ous existence,  so  dazzled  by  the  marvels  of  an  era  which 
has  indeed  snatched  the  thunderbolts  from  heaven  and 
the  scepter  from  tyrants,  that  we  may  have  lost  some- 
thing of  the  old  wonder  at  the  majesty  of  God  in 
wonder  at  the  achievements  of  man.  Would  such  a 
sweeping  religious  exaltation  as  the  Crusades  be  possible 
to-day  ?  We  have  tried  to  see  an  instance  of  a  similar 


140  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

enthusiasm  in  the  growth  of  the  Salvation  Army,  but 
the  parallel  is  far  from  perfect.  More  of  such  enthusiasm 
as  animated  the  Crusaders  we  undoubtedly  need  now- 
adays. Reckless  and  even  narrow  idealism  is  not  always 
a  bad  thing,  —  it  is  the  ideal  itself  which  counts.  How- 
ever it  may  stand  with  us,  the  men  of  the  Middle  Ages 
could  hardly  escape  being  touched  to  finer  issues  by 
having  such  a  theme  as  this  before  them.  Perhaps  un- 
consciously, poets  made  the  old  pagan  story  into  a  re- 
flection of  their  own  times.  The  quest  of  a  knight  for 
the  Holy  Grail  is  only  an  allegory  of  the  struggle  of  the 
Crusader  to  reach,  through  difficulties  and  discourage- 
ments as  great  as  those  raised  by  enchantment,  the 
Holy  Sepulcher  at  Jerusalem.  In  poetry,  this  lofty 
theme  partly  supplanted  baser  subjects,  just  as  the 
heroism  of  the  Crusades  partly  supplanted  baser  motives 
in  a  time  of  violence  and  oppression.  In  spite  of  irrev- 
erence and  immorality  and  cynicism,  the  legend  of  the 
Holy  Grail  stood  to  the  end  for  the  highest  knightly 
ideal. 

In  turning  now  to  the  story  which  gibes  at  religion 
and  scoffs  at  morality,  the  History  of  Reynard  the  Fox, 
we  must  keep  constantly  before  us  the  significance  of 
this  ideal.  Its  very  exaggerations  are  necessary  to 
balance  the  extremes  in  the  cynical  story  of  Reynard. 
In  the  Middle  Ages,  as  we  have  seen,  the  golden  mean 
was  seldom  observed;  religion  and  cynicism  were  alike 
pushed  to  their  limits.  The  two  stories  of  the  Holy 
Grail  and  of  Reynard  the  Fox  are  as  sharply  contrasted 
as  the  sculptured  saint  on  a  cathedral,  gazing  with  vague, 
fixed  stare  beyond  a  world  of  vanity  to  a  heavenly  goal, 
and  the  gargoyle  hard  by,  leering  up  in  his  face  with 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  HOLY  GRAIL  141 

impish  irreverence.  Each  represents  a  special  mani- 
festation of  medieval  social  consciousness,  and  each 
has  contributed,  the  gargoyle  as  well  as  the  saint,  the 
saint  as  well  as  the  gargoyle,  to  the  saner  and  better- 
balanced  life  of  modern  times. 


VI 
THE   HISTORY   OF  REYNARD   THE   FOX 


But  ye  that  holden  this  tale  a  folye, 
As  of  a  fox,  or  of  a  cok  and  hen, 
Taketh  the  moralitee,  good  men. 

—  CHAUCER. 


VI 

THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX 

IN  Maeterlinck's  charming  fantasy,  'The  Blue  Bird', 
there  is  a  pretty  scene  in  which  the  animals  and  the 
household  objects  in  the  cottage  of  a  poor  peasant  are 
transformed  into  the  semblance  of  human  beings  through 
the  arts  of  the  Fairy  Berylune.  The  little  boy,  the 
hero  of  the  play,  turns  a  diamond  button  in  a  magic 
cap,  and  suddenly  all  sorts  of  wonders  come  to  pass. 
The  Water  and  the  Milk  become  graceful  undulating 
ladies,  the  Bread  waddles  about  the  stage  in  the  shape 
of  a  fat,  puffy  man,  the  Fire,  in  human  form,  darts 
hither  and  thither  with  the  agility  of  a  dancer,  and  the 
Sugar  makes  soothing  remarks,  or  breaks  off  the  tips  of 
his  fingers  as  sweets  for  the  children.  In  the  adventures 
of  the  little  boy  and  his  sister  the  Dog  and  the  Cat  take 
particularly  active  parts,  the  one  faithful  and  affec- 
tionate, the  other  sly  and  hypocritical.  Their  trans- 
formation is  not,  perhaps,  so  startling,  for  even  as  dumb 
animals  they  seem  more  human  than  the  food  and  drink. 
Who  has  not  been  reminded  of  disagreeable  people  of 
his  acquaintance  by  the  ingratitude  or  selfishness  of  a 
favorite  cat,  or  felt  his  heart  warm  to  the  truly  human 
sympathy  of  a  pet  dog?  So  it  is  in  the  play;  the 
children  barely  escape  the  machinations  of  Tylette  the 

L  145 


146  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

cat,  who,  though  once  their  playfellow,  has  no  hesita- 
tion about  betraying  them,  while  to  the  very  end  Tylo 
the  dog  is  the  embodiment  of  complete  devotion. 
These  are  the  most  real  of  all  the  actors  in  the  little 
story  who  are  transformed  by  the  fairy's  magic,  because 
their  natures  and  ours  are  separated  by  so  slight  a 
barrier,  which  a  touch  of  enchantment  can  easily  break 
down. 

We  almost  forget,  in  the  charm  and  originality  with 
which  Maeterlinck  has  worked  out  this  conception,  that 
it  is  really  not  new,  but  a  part  of  a  tradition  as  old  as 
story-telling  itself.  There  has  hardly  been  an  age  since 
the  world  began,  as  far  back  as  we  have  any  knowledge 
of  popular  literature,  when  animals  and  inanimate  things 
have  not  spoken  with  the  tongues  of  men,  and  acted  like 
human  beings.  A  Fairy  Berylune  has  always  been  on 
hand,  —  we  may  call  her  Imagination,  if  we  choose  — 
to  transform  the  beast-world  for  children  of  a  larger 
growth,  as  well  as  for  those  of  tenderer  years.  The 
most  familiar  animal  tales  of  the  present  day  are  only 
in  a  small  degree  the  creation  of  modern  times.  Joel 
Chandler  Harris  has  made  us  acquainted  with  Brer  Fox 
and  Brer  Rabbit,  but  he  learned  it  all  from  many  an 
Uncle  Remus  of  the  South,  who  inherited  it  ultimately 
from  ancestors  in  whose  African  forests  animals  talked 
and  acted  like  men.  Kipling  narrates  the  adventures 
of  the  boy  Mowgli  among  the  beasts  and  birds  of  the 
Indian  jungle,  but  in  spite  of  many  touches  due  to 
Kipling's  imagination,  Mowgli  might  just  as  well  have 
lived  three  thousand  years  ago,  when  tales  of  half- 
human  animals  were  popular  in  India,  as  at  the  present 
day.  Again,  the  very  name  "^Esop"  attached  to  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        147 

fables  which  the  children  read  in  the  nursery  is  a  sur- 
vival of  the  tradition  that  they  were  composed  in  classi- 
cal antiquity  by  a  gifted  slave.  In  short,  whenever  we 
follow  story-telling  back  to  its  sources,  we  are  sure 
to  find  anthropomorphic  conceptions  of  animals  and. 
things.  Chaucer,  in  telling  his  story  of  the  Cock  and 
the  Fox,  half  apologizes  :  — 

For  thilke  tyme,  as  I  have  understonde, 
Bestes  and  briddes  coude  speke  and  singe. 

But  "  thilke  tyme"  means  all  the  ages  past  in  which  men 
have  loved  good  stories.  And  it  has  never  passed; 
we  still  endow  animals  with  human  attributes  whenever 
we  give  our  fancy  rein.  So  Maeterlinck,  in  his  charm- 
ing tale,  has  only  added  a  drop  to  a  sea  of  story-telling 
which  washes  the  farthest  shores  that  exploration  can 
reach. 

After  its  universality,  the  most  distinctive  quality 
of  this  beast-literature  is  its  popular  character,  in  the 
sense  that  it  has  always  been,  in  its  earlier  stages, 
the  possession  and  the  product  of  the  people  themselves. 
Individual  writers  and  poets  may  have  reshaped  it,  but 
it  is  not  they  who  have  made  it  vital  and  significant. 
It  is,  in  Jusserand's  phrase,  "an  expression  and  outcome 
of  the  popular  mind."  It  is  full  of  the  lively  imagina- 
tion and  the  keen  observation  of  those  who  are  more 
familiar  with  fields  and  forests  than  with  pen  and  ink. 
In  the  beginning  it  lives  by  word  of  mouth,  told  at  the 
fireside,  after  the  day's  work  is  over,  or  during  the  tedium 
of  winter  evenings,  —  whenever,  in  short,  a  tale  is  in 
order.  Whether  we  find  it  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile  or 
the  Ganges,  the  Mississippi  or  the  Rhine,  it  is  curiously 


148  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

constant  in  its  essentials,  —  true  to  the  peculiarities 
of  the  people  among  whom  it  has  developed,  but  also 
true  to  the  spirit  of  popular  story.  Curious  similarities 
of  incident  appear,  for  which  nobody  has  ever  been  able 
to  account  in  a  really  satisfactory  way,  and  which  are, 
provided  literary  influence  is  out  of  the  question,  a 
pretty  sure  indication  of  popular  origin.  A  tale  in 
Iceland  may  be  essentially  the  same  as  one  in  New 
Guinea ;  the  South  American  Indians  have  a  story  about 
the  tortoise  which  is  a  good  parallel  to  one  told  by 
Uncle  Remus  about  the  terrapin.  Scholars  have  spent 
much  time  and  thought  in  trying  to  decide  how  all  these 
peoples  can  have  evolved  practically  identical  narratives 
independently.  The  fundamental  likeness  in  the  im- 
aginative processes  of  primitive  folk  may  account  in 
part  for  the  presence  of  the  same  story  in  widely  sep- 
arated communities  of  a  similar  degree  of  intelligence 
and  culture,  but  it  hardly  makes  the  matter  entirely 
clear.  Of  this  particular  kind  of  intellectual  fellowship 
we  have  but  little  in  the  twentieth  century.  We  have 
substituted,  it  is  true,  a  more  desirable  sort,  but  it  is 
odd  to  reflect  that  we  might  be  in  some  respects  closer 
to  foreign  peoples  if  we  were  all  in  a  state  of  savagery, 
with  no  transatlantic  cables  or  steamers,  no  books  or 
newspapers,  than  we  are  with  all  the  bonds  of  intercourse 
of  modern  civilization. 

The  simplicity  and  universality  of  these  animal 
stories  may  be  illustrated  by  Uncle  Remus's  account 
of  how  Brer  Rabbit  lost  his  long  bushy  tail.  It  will  be 
observed  that  this  story  explains  the  reason  why  Brer 
Rabbit  and  all  his  family  have  had  short  tails  ever  since. 
The  main  part  of  the  story  is  as  follows :  — 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        149 

"  One  day  Brer  Rabbit  wuz  gwine  down  de  road  shakin'  his  long, 
bushy  tail,  w'en  who  should  he  strike  up  wid  but  ole  Brer  Fox  gwine 
amblin'  long  wid  er  big  string  er  fish  !  W'en  dey  pass  de  time  er  day 
wid  wunner  nudder,  Brer  Rabbit,  he  open  up  de  confab,  he  did,  en 
he  ax  Brer  Fox  whar  he  git  dat  nice  string  er  fish,  en  Brer  Fox,  he 
up  'n  'spon'  dat  he  kotch  um,  en  Brer  Rabbit,  he  say  whar'bouts,  en 
Brer  Fox,  he  say  down  at  de  babtizin'  creek,  en  Brer  Rabbit  he  ax 
how,  kaze  in  dem  days  dey  wuz  monstus  f  on'  er  minners,  en  Brer  Fox, 
he  sat  down  on  a  log,  he  did,  en  he  up'n  tell  Brer  Rabbit  dat  all  he 
gotter  do  f er  ter  git  er  big  mess  er  minners  is  ter  go  ter  de  creek  atter 
sun  down,  en  drap  his  tail  in  de  water  en  set  dar  twel  daylight, 
en  den  draw  up  a  whole  armful  er  fishes,  en  dem  w'at  he  don't  want, 
he  kin  fling  back.  Right  dar's  whar  Brer  Rabbit  drap  his  water- 
million,  kaze  he  tuck'n  sot  out  dat  night  en  went  a  fishin'.  De 
wedder  wuz  sorter  cole,  en  Brer  Rabbit,  he  got  'im  a  bottle  er  dram 
en  put  out  fer  de  creek,  en  w'en  he  got  dar  he  pick  out  a  good  place, 
en  he  sorter  squot  down,  he  did,  en  let  his  tail  hang  in  de  water.  He 
sot  dar,  en  he  sot  dar,  en  he  drunk  his  dram,  en  he  think  he  gwine- 
ter  freeze,  but  bimeby  day  come,  en  dar  he  wuz.  He  make  a  pull,  en 
he  feel  like  he  comin'  in  two,  en  he  fetch  nudder  jerk,  en  lo  en  be- 
holes,  whar  wuz  his  tail  ?  " 

"Did  it  come  off,  Uncle  Remus?"  asked  the  little  boy,  presently. 

"  She  did  dat ! "  replied  the  old  man  with  unction.  "She  did  dat,  and 
dat  w'at  make  all  deze  yer  bob-tail  rabbits  w'at  you  see  hoppin  en 
skaddlin'  thoo  de  woods." 

We  can  readily  imagine  how  much  a  story  like  this 
would  appeal  to  a  popular  audience.  And  this  same 
incident  is  told,  with  variations,  all  over  the  world,  — 
in  Finland,  in  Scotland,  in  Hungary,  in  Greece,  in 
Africa.  In  the  Soudan,  where  ice  is  unknown,  the  cen- 
tral episode  has  to  be  something  different :  the  tail  is 
caught,  not  in  the  frozen  pool,  but  in  the  tangle  of  roots 
and  branches  under  the  waters  of  a  tropical  swamp. 
The  actors  vary,  too.  In  the  commonest  medieval 
French  version  it  is  the  bear  and  not  the  rabbit  that  is 


150  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  victim.  But  the  main  outlines  are  quite  the  same. 
The  fox  is  roasting  eels,  and  the  bear  is  attracted  by 
the  savory  odor.  The  same  trick  is  played,  the  bear 
drops  his  tail  —  once  long  and  bushy  like  the  fox's  — 
into  the  chilly  water,  and  is  obliged  to  leave  the  end 
of  it  sticking  in  the  ice  in  order  to  escape  the  dogs  and 
huntsmen.  Consequently  the  bear  has  had  a  short  tail 
ever  since. 

This  general  type  of  story  is  of  great  antiquity  as  well 
as  of  wide  distribution  over  the  globe.  It  is  not  strange 
that  it  has  been  popular,  with  its  simple  outline  and  its 
dramatic  ending.  But  there  is  still  another  reason  for 
its  perpetuation ;  it<  responds  to  the  desire  of  the  un- 
developed mind  for  explanations  of  natural  phenomena. 
Primitive  people  and  children  are  much  alike;  their 
minds  work  in  a  similar  way.  The  insistent  demand 
of  a  child  to  be  told  the  reason  for  anything  which  he 
does  not  understand  is  familiar  to  all  of  us;  these 
stories,  in  the  beginning,  answered  the  "whys"  of  men 
who  were  still  as  untrained  and  uneducated  as  children. 
This  perhaps  explains  why  they  have  such  an  absorb- 
ing interest  for  the  modern  nursery.  But  you  may 
see  traces  of  them  in  the  '  Jatakas/  or  Buddhist  Birth- 
Stories,  which  arose  long  before  the  Christian  era, 
as  well  as  in  the  '  Just-So  Stories.7  In  the  latter, 
Kipling,  writing  for  his  own  children,  has  drawn  from 
the  great  storehouse  of  popular  literature  which  he 
knows  so  well.  "Why  does  the  Leopard  have  such 
funny  spots?"  asks  the  child.  The  story  tells  the 
reason:  the  Leopard  had  a  good  chance  to  have  his 
skin  "done  over,"  and  the  Ethiopian,  who  had  just 
changed  his  skin  himself,  volunteered  to  undertake  the 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        151 

job  of  marking  him.     There  is  some  debate  about  the 
design. 

"Think  of  Giraffe,"  said  the  Ethiopian.  " Or  if  you  prefer  stripes 
think  of  Zebra.  They  find  their  spots  and  stripes  give  them  perfect 
satisfaction." 

"Umm,"  said  the  Leopard.  "I  wouldn't  look  like  Zebra  —  not 
for  ever  so." 

"Well,  make  up  your  mind,"  said  the  Ethiopian,  "because  I'd 
hate  to  go  hunting  without  you,  but  I  must  if  you  insist  on  looking 
like  a  sun-flower  against  a  tarred  fence." 

"I'll  take  spots,  then,"  said  the  Leopard,  "but  don't  make  'em  too 
vulgar-big.  I  wouldn't  look  like  Giraffe  —  not  for  ever  so." 

"I'll  make  'em  with  the  tips  of  my  fingers,"  said  the  Ethiopian. 
"There's  plenty  of  black  left  on  my  skin  still.  Stand  over  ! " 

Then  the  Ethiopian  put  his  five  fingers  close  together  (there  was 
plenty  of  black  on  his  new  skin  still)  and  pressed  them  all  over  the 
Leopard,  and  wherever  the  five  fingers  touched  they  left  five  little 
black  marks,  all  close  together.  You  can  see  them  on  any  Leopard's 
skin  you  like,  Best  Beloved.  Sometimes  the  fingers  slipped  and  the 
marks  got  a  little  blurred;  but  if  you  look  closely  at  any  Leopard 
now  you  will  see  that  there  are  always  five  spots  —  off  five  fat  black 
finger-tips." 

But  while  animal  tales  are  thoroughly  popular  and 
universal,  and  while  their  incidents  may  be  very  similar 
in  different  countries  and  at  different  times,  they  are 
none  the  less  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  people 
and  the  age  to  which  they  severally  belong.  The  stories 
of  Uncle  Remus,  for  all  they  may  have  their  counter- 
parts on  the  river  Amazon  or  in  the  Middle  Ages,  rep- 
resent, as  their  transcriber  says,  "  the  shrewd  observa- 
tion, the  curious  retorts,  the  homely  thrusts,  the  quaint 
comments,  and  the  human  philosophy  of  the  race  of 
which  Uncle  Remus  is  the  type."  In  the  same  way,  the 
medieval  versions  of  these  stories  are  perfect  reflections 


152  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

of  the  society  which  produced  them.  We  have  already 
seen  how  little  the  Middle  Ages  were  troubled  by  lack 
of  originality  in  plot,  how  authors  aimed  to  have  it 
thought  that  they  were  merely  reproducing  tradition, 
but  how  impossible  it  was  for  them  to  retell  a  story 
without  giving  it  the  distinctive  stamp  of  their  own 
times.  They  had  no  historical  sense,  they  could  not 
depict  the  life  of  other  countries  or  of  other  ages  except 
in  terms  of  their  own  day  and  their  own  country.  Their 
limitations  were  particularly  evident,  for  instance,  in 
treating  classical  material.  They  may  have  made  the 
tales  of  Greece  and  Rome  quaint  and  curious,  but  they 
also  made  them  stiff  and  grotesque.  No  amount  of 
medieval  magnificence  could  make  Alexander  or  JEneas 
seem  at  his  ease  in  the  trappings  of  a  feudal  knight. 
But  such  limitations  did  not  hamper  their  treatment 
of  the  animal  stories.  There  is  no  material  so  flexible, 
so  easily  interpreted  in  terms  of  the  present,  and  still 
so  natural  and  convincing.  Animals  are  always  with 
us,  and  their  habits  do  not  materially  change.  Once 
admit  that  they  are  to  act  like  men,  and  their  appear- 
ance in  the  garb  of  the  present  day  seems  entirely 
suitable. 

It  is,  indeed,  almost  impossible  for  the  story-teller 
not  to  interpret  the  characteristics  of  animals  in  terms 
of  his  own  age,  if  he  makes  them  speak  with  human 
voices,  and  reason  like  human  beings.  He  must  de- 
lineate them  in  the  same  way  that  he  would  his  fellow- 
men,  and  it  is  his  fellow-men  who  must  serve  as  models. 
In  setting  forth  the  character  of  the  Fox,  he  may  very 
likely  have  consciously  in  mind  some  persons  with 
whom  he  is  acquainted,  men  of  subtle  shifts  and  crafty 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        153 

schemes,  and  if  he  does  not  consciously  think  of  such 
people,  he  is  likely  unconsciously  to  have  their  images 
in  the  back  of  his  brain.  Moreover,  his  narrative  will 
be  influenced  by  similarities  between  the  intercourse  of 
beasts  and  the  social  life  of  men.  If  he  makes  the  ani- 
mals hold  a  meeting,  he  may  well  model  this  assemblage 
on  some  deliberative  body  with  which  he  is  familiar. 
The  peculiar  manners  and  customs  of  the  day  are  sure 
to  attach  themselves  to  the  world  of  animals,  when 
once  these  are  anthropomorphically  conceived. 

Such  a  story-teller  may  even  go  further,  and  see  in 
certain  species  of  animals  the  reflection  of  certain  large 
groups  or  classes  of  human  society.  He  knows  that  the 
cat  pursues  the  mouse,  and  that  the  hawk  swoops  down 
upon  the  chickens,  and  if  he  lives  in  an  age  when  the 
weak  are  oppressed  by  the  wealthy  ancj  influential 
members  of  the  community,  he  may  well  make  the 
hawk  or  the  cat  stand  for  the  more  rapacious  types  of 
.human  beings.  Sympathy  with  the  people  and  a  keen 
sense  of  the  shortcomings  of  the  ruling  classes  can  hardly 
fail  to  influence  the  telling  of  such  animal  tales,  in  which 
pity  for  the  weak  is  accompanied  by  a  pleasant  realiza- 
tion of  the  faults  and  failings  of  their  stronger  brethren. 
So  La  Fontaine,  the  great  French  fable-writer,  found, 
as  Taine  has  brilliantly  demonstrated,  the  prototypes 
of  his  animals  at  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  Under  the 
guise  of  the  Lion  he  suggested  the  characteristics  of  the 
king  of  France,  and  under  the  masks  of  the  various  birds 
and  beasts  those  of  his  courtiers.  So  also  Rostand,  in 
his  '  Chantecler '  —  a  play  which  could  never  have  been 
written  without  a  knowledge  of  the  medieval  Reynard 
stories  —  has  incidentally  satirized  the  affectations  of 


154  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  present  day.  When  the  Guinea-Hen  gives  an  af- 
ternoon tea,  we  recognize  in  her  conversation  and  in 
that  of  her  guests  a  reflection  of  the  frivolous  and  vapid 
talk  of  modern  circles  of  shallow  culture  and  vacuous 
self-satisfaction.  The  man  who  tells  an  animal  tale 
as  it  should  be  told,  with  plenty  of  local  color  and 
characterization  drawn  from  r-eal  life,  can  hardly  escape 
constructing  an  allegory  of  his  own  times.  If  we  have 
the  wit  to  read  between  the  lines,  we  can  gather  from 
such  tales  much  of  the  social  history  of  the  period. 

This  is  precisely  what  happened  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
With  the  beginning  of  the  feudal  period,  these  simple 
folk-tales,  which  had  long  been  current  in  oral  form, 
and  as  fables  and  apologs  among  more  learned  circles, 
began  to  assume  a  more  elaborate  shape.  More  and 
more  they  came  to  reflect  the  life  and  manners  of  men, 
and  more  and  more,  as  they  expanded,  they  grew  in 
dramatic  interest.  They  were  now  no  longer  brief, 
making  a  single  situation  effective;  they  ran  to  con- 
siderable length,  narrating  a  whole  series  of  events, 
with  the  added  interest  of  suspense.  They  became  epic, 
in  the  larger  sense  of  the  word.  Their  heroes  and 
heroines  began  to  assume  personalities  as  definite  as 
those  in  any  epic  poem,  and  these  distinctive  char- 
acteristics were  crystallized  in  appropriate  names,  - 
Reynard  and  Couart  and  Isengrim,  instead  of  The  Fox 
or  The  Hare  or  The  Wolf.  Such  figures,  in  their  larger 
epic  capacity,  became  as  familiar  to  the  people  as 
Roland  or  Ganelon.  But  while  the  characteristics  of 
Roland  or  Ganelon  were  derived  from  tradition,  in 
which  the  one  had  proved  himself  a  hero  and  the  other, 
in  no  wise  connected  with  him,  a  traitor,  the  charac- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        155 

teristics  of  Reynard  or  Isengrim  were  determined  and 
corrected  by  actual  observation  of  the  traits  and  habits 
of  the  fox  and  the  wolf.  The  human  elements  con- 
stantly tended  to  increase,  however.  The  more  popular 
these  animals  became  as  epic  figures,  the  more  they 
acted  like  men  and  the  less  they  behaved  like  beasts. 
We  see  them  worship  like  Christians,  go  to  mass,  ride  on 
horses,  debate  at  length  in  councils,  and  divert  them- 
selves with  hawking  and  hunting.  And  the  elaboration 
of  the  story,  involving  a  close  portrayal  of  manners  and 
customs,  brought  with  it  real  or  implied  comment  on 
these  ear-marks  of  the  age.  Satire  creeps  in,  even  in 
the  earlier  versions,  and  in  the  later  versions  is  often 
carried  to  an  inartistic  excess.  While  generally  gay 
and  good-humored,  these  more  elaborate  beast-stories 
are  sometimes  overweighted  by  their  gibes  at  individuals 
or  at  social  abuses.  The  point  of  some  of  these  jests  is 
plain  enough  at  the  present  day.  When  the  Fox,  whom 
we  all  know  to  be  a  villain,  confesses  his  sins  to  the 
Badger,  with  much  mouthing  of  Latin  prayers,  or  vows 
he  will  go  to  the  Holy  Land  on  a  pious  pilgrimage,  we 
know  that  the  man  who  inserted  these  satirical  elabora- 
tions in  the  story  had  his  own  ideas  about  the  sincerity 
of  religious  observances  in  his  own  day.  Or,  to  take 
another  instance,  when  the  Camel  rises  to  address  the 
court  before  which  Reynard  is  on  trial,  and  speaks  lame 
legal  French  with  a  strong  Italian  accent,  we  can 
recognize  a  hit  at  certain  Italian  lawyers  who  meddled 
in  French  politics.  Often,  however,  the  allegory  is  not 
clear  enough,  or  our  knowledge  of  contemporary  events 
minute  enough,  to  penetrate  the  subtleties  of  the  animal 
disguises.  The  face  of  an  individual  may  be  hidden 


156  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

beneath  the  mask  of  the  brute,  but  it  is  generally  too 
cleverly  hidden  and  too  soon  withdrawn  for  recognition. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  medieval  stories 
about  Reynard  the  Fox  do  not  form  a  single  well-pro- 
portioned and  consistent  whole.  Even  in  France,  where 
they  attained  their  greatest  brilliancy  and  spirit,  they 
were  far  from  being  all  cast  in  the  same  mold.  They 
are,  as  has  just  been  suggested,  often  called  an  epic, 
but  if  we  put  them  together,  we  shall  have  no  such 
poem  as  the  'Song  of  Roland7  or  'Beowulf.'  They 
reflect  the  ideas  of  different  men  and  the  society  of 
different  times  and  places.  They  are  not  similar  in 
structure,  or  of  equal  literary  merit.  Indecorous  epi- 
sodes and  irrelevant  additions  abound.  In  later  times 
the  simple  country  landscape  in  which  the  beasts  had 
moved  was  even,  in  one  version,  mixed  up  with  the  walls 
of  windy  Troy.  Still  later,  the  tales  got  into  prose  form, 
as  in  the  version  which  Caxton  printed  for  English 
readers  about  the  time  of  the  Discovery  of  America, 
more  than  three  centuries  after  the  beast-tale  had  begun 
to  assume  epic  proportions  in  Western  Europe.  Dur- 
ing these  centuries  we  must  think  of  the  adventures  of 
Reynard  as  spreading,  in  this  more  elaborate  form, 
through  France  and  Holland  and  Flanders  and  Ger- 
many and  England.  Out  of  all  this  mass  of  stories  it 
is  hard  to  say  which  shall  be  called  the  true  romance  of 
Reynard,  which  of  all  these  profane  gospels  shall  be 
held  canonical. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  unity  about  the  great 
medieval  collection  made  on  French  soil  and  known  as 
the  'Roman  de  Renart.'  Although  the  separate  stories 
of  which  it  is  composed  are  of  varying  age  and  pro- 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        157 

venience,  they  preserve  a  certain  symmetry,  a  certain 
regard  for  the  spirit  of  the  work  as  a  whole.  These 
different  " branches/'  as  they  are  called,  have  often 
been  likened  to  the  branches  of  a  tree,  some  of  which 
have  grown  strong  and  large,  and  are  burdened  with 
leaves  and  fruit,  while  others,  of  slighter  growth,  have 
burgeoned  in  a  later  spring,  and  are  overshadowed  by 
their  stouter  neighbors.  And  just  as  the  limbs  of 
a  tree  should  not  be  too  symmetrical,  too  exactly 
balanced,  but  ought  to  give,  by  their  very  irregularity, 
an  impression  of  unstudied  beauty,  so  the  " branches'7 
of  this  poem  produce  a  certain  effect  upon  the  reader 
by  their  unlikeness,  by  their  variety  and  contrast.  It 
is  this  collection  which  we  shall  take  for  our  discussion 
here,  since  it  represents  the  beast-epic  in  its  best  medie- 
val estate,  without  the  exaggerations  of  the  later  ver- 
sions. 

The  Fox  is  the  hero  of  the  medieval  beast-epic,  in  fact 
as  well  as  in  name.  He  holds  the  center  of  the  stage; 
there  are  few  episodes  in  which  he  does  not  appear. 
Upon  his  figure  is  lavished  the  most  brilliant  characteri- 
zation, and  his  actions  are  made  the  occasion  for  the 
sharpest  satire.  He  is  preeminent  among  all  the  beasts 
for  cunning  and  rascality.  By  the  pure  exercise  of  his 
wits  he  prevails  over  those  stronger  than  himself  in  mere 
physical  endowment.  But  a  certain  poetic  justice  is 
preserved ;  when  Reynard  attempts  to  injure  the  weaker 
creatures,  he  is  likely  to  come  off  second  best.  Clever 
as  he  is,  the  Tom-tit  and  the  Cock  outwit  him.  "Let 
me  give  you  the  kiss  of  peace!"  he  says  to  the  Tom- 
tit on  the  branch  over  his  head.  "By  my  faith,"  re- 
plies the  Tom-tit,  "I'll  do  it!"  But  the  bird  has  seen 


158  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

through  the  trick,  and  at  the  moment  when  the  Fox 
tries  to  snap  her  up,  he  gets  a  "handful"  of  moss  and 
leaves  which  the  Tom-tit  has  gathered,  full  in  his  face 
and  eyes.  In  the  well-known  story  of  his  capture  of 
Chanticleer,  so  charmingly  told  by  Chaucer,  he  loses  his 
prey  through  the  superior  cunning  of  the  Cock.  The 
hero  of  the  animal  tales  is  not  always  successful,  by 
any  means.  Brer  Rabbit  has  his  misfortunes;  the 
Turkey  Buzzard  and  the  Terrapin  prove  too  much  for 
his  wits,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  he  loses  his  tail  in  the 
ice.  But  these  are  the  exceptions ;  both  Brer  Rabbit 
and  Reynard  seldom  get  worsted.  It  is  curious,  on 
the  other  hand,  that  the  chief  place  for  cleverness  is 
given  by  the  negroes  to  the  timorous  and  ineffectual 
rabbit.  In  the  Middle  Ages,  Couart,  "the  coward/7 
as  he  is  called,  is  no  match  for  the  Fox.  On  one 
occasion  he  is  so  scared  by  Reynard  that  he  has  a  two- 
days7  fever.  We  can  better  understand  why  the  python 
Kaa  has  such  a  store  of  wisdom  among  the  beasts 
of  Kipling's  jungle,  or  why  the  Germans  of  to-day 
exalt  the  dachshund,  whose  exploits  you  may  see  set 
forth  in  almost  any  number  of  the  'Fliegende  Blatter.7 
But  Brer  Rabbit  is  perhaps  effective  through  his  very 
weakness.  If  a  hero  accomplishes  as  much  as  he  de- 
spite such  severe  handicaps,  is  he  not  twice  a  hero  ? 
And  he  serves  better  the  gentler  humor  of  the  negroes, 
while  the  mordant  cynicism  and  the  delight  in  sheer 
deviltry  of  the  'Romance  of  Reynard7  are  better 
brought  out  by  a  protagonist  like  the  rascally  Fox. 

Reynard  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  villains  in  the 
whole  range  of  fiction,  as  subtle  and  hypocritical  as 
Tartuffe,  as  dashing  and  debonair  as  Don  Juan,  as 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        159 

heartless  as  lago,  and  always  as  whimsically  lawless 
as  Dick  Turpin.  He  is  nobody's  friend,  and  yet  he  is 
the  constant  associate  of  the  other  animals.  They  all 
have  a  grievance  against  him,  and  yet  he  can  bask  in 
the  sun  in  front  of  his  residence,  the  famous  " fortress" 
of  Maleperduys,  and  pass  the  time  of  day  with  them 
as  they  walk  by.  He  can  take  refuge  from  their  right- 
eous wrath  in  the  secret  passages  and  tortuous  windings 
of  this  abode,  but  he  much  prefers  the  excitement  of 
trusting  to  his  own  ingenuity.  Nothing  pleases  him 
better  than  to  see  how  close  to  the  wind  he  can  sail. 
He  has  something  of  the  same  intellectual  delight  in 
his  villainy  that  Shakspere's  Richard  III  displays. 
Richard's  winning  of  Lady  Anne  is  hardly  more  a  piece 
of  virtuosity  than  the  process  by  which  the  Fox  makes 
the  Raven,  sitting  on  the  branch  over  his  head,  drop  the 
piece  of  cheese  he  covets.  In  this  old  story,  common 
from  the  days  of  ^Esop  to  those  of  La  Fontaine,  the 
'Romance  of  Reynard'  shows  a  subtlety  and  a  dis- 
tinction of  treatment  which  put  it  in  a  class  by  itself. 
The  Raven  does  not  hold  the  cheese  in  his  beak,  as  in 
the  classic  fable ;  he  has  it  securely  between  his  claws. 
This  makes  the  task  of  the  Fox  far  more  difficult ;  he  is 
obliged  to  work  up  his  effect  by  degrees.  First  a  start  of 
pleased  surprise  at  seeing  his  " compere"  on  the  branch 
above  him,  then  a  reflection  on  the  musical  skill  of  the 
Raven's  sainted  father.  The  Fox  further  recalls  that 
the  Raven  used  to  sing  in  his  infancy,  and,  as  a  lover 
of  music,  he  begs  him  to  sing  a  little  now.  So  the 
flattered  bird  croaks  out  a  few  notes.  "  You're  in  even 
better  voice  than  usual,"  says  the  Fox.  "See  if  you 
can't  take  one  note  higher. ' '  The  Raven  obligingly  com- 


160  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

plies,  but  the  cheese  does  not  fall.  "God!"  says  Rey- 
nard, "what  purity  of  tone!  If  you  only  keep  yourself 
in  condition,  you'll  be  the  first  singer  of  the  age.  Do 
sing  once  more!77  And  the  Raven,  in  his  excitement, 
drops  the  cheese.  But  even  then  Reynard  waits  for 
a  further  effect,  and  heroically  refrains  from  eating 
the  tempting  morsel  immediately  in  the  hope  of  getting 
the  Raven  for  a  meal  too.  He  almost  succeeds  in  entic- 
ing him  off  his  branch  by  pretending  that  the  cheese, 
in  falling,  has  hurt  his  leg.  In  this  he  is  unsuccessful, 
although  the  Raven  has  a  close  shave  in  escaping.  But 
Reynard  has  the  satisfaction  of  eating  the  cheese  before 
the  eyes  of  the  discomfited  bird,  "and  he  didn't  com- 
plain that  it  made  a  bad  meal." 

The  'Romance  of  Reynard7  appeals  to  the  eternal 
sympathy  with  a  successful  rascal  latent  in  human 
nature;  the  same  quality  which  endears  Punch  to 
our  hearts,  despite  his  ghastly  catalogue  of  crimes,  or 
secures  the  popularity  of  dramas  of  roguery,  from 
'Peck's  Bad  Boy7  to  'Raffles.7  No  attempt  is  made 
to  excuse  the  actions  of  the  Fox;  that  would  have 
spoiled  the  fun.  This  is  done  elsewhere,  however; 
Caxton  avows  that  he  relates  such  deceits  "not  to  the 
intent  that  men  should  use  them,  but  that  every  man 
should  eschew  and  keep  him  from  the  subtle  false 
shrews  that  they  be  not  deceived,77  — which  reminds  us 
of  Defoe7s  pious  justification  of  his  stories  of  rakes  and 
courtesans  as  awful  warnings,  a  sanctimonious  pose 
which  has  never  made  them  less  piquant  from  that  day 
to  this.  Nor  is  there  any  attempt  in  the  'Roman  de 
Renart7  to  do  justice  on  the  villain,  even  though  he  is 
sometimes  discomfited.  Its  spirit  is  much  like  that  of 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX        161 

Uncle  Remus.  When  Brer  Possum  is  burned  to  death 
through  the  devices  of  Brer  Rabbit,  Uncle  Remus  ob- 
serves, "In  dis  worruld  lots  er  fokes  is  gotter  suffer  fer 
odder  fokes  sins." 

Professor  Brander  Matthews  has  called  attention  to 
Kipling's  imaginative  power  in  creating  for  his  beasts 
a  special  Law  of  the  Jungle,  and  has  pointed  out  that 
"it  is  this  portrayal  of  wild  life  subject  to  an  immiti- 
gable code  which  gives  its  sustaining  moral  to  the  narra- 
tive of  Mowgli's  career."  But  both  in  the  creation  of 
a  special  Law  of  Beasts  and  in  the  addition  of  a  moral 
application,  Kipling  has  departed  from  the  popular 
beast-tale.  Such  stories  have,  indeed,  in  the  shape  of 
fables  and  the  like,  often  been  made  directly  didactic, 
but  they  have  pointed  morals  of  everyday  human  life, 
they  have  not  been  designed  to  illustrate  special  codes 
of  ethics  among  animals.  While  the  beast-tales  of  the 
Middle  Ages  set  forth  a  system  of  government,  it  is  not 
a  system  peculiar  to  animals,  but  a  reflection  of  the  laws 
of  men.  One  "branch"  of  the  ' Romance  of  Reynard' 
affords  an  admirable  illustration  of  this.  Here  we 
are  shown  the  beasts  assembled  at  the  court  of  their 
king,  and  the  royal  methods  of  dispensing  justice. 
There  is  little  in  it  really  distinctive  of  the  beast-world. 
It  is  a  bitter  satire  on  the  capriciousness  of  kings,  the 
miscarriages  of  justice,  the  windy  eloquence  of  coun- 
selors, and  the  abuses  of  religious  observance.  We 
cannot  do  better  than  examine  this  famous  scene  a  little 
in  detail. 

King  Noble  the  Lion  is  holding  his  court,  at  which 
all  the  animals  have  assembled,  save  Reynard  the  Fox. 
The  proceedings  are  opened  by  Isengrim  the  Wolf,  who 


162  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

rises  to  demand  justice  against  Reynard,  whose  flirta- 
tions with  the  Wolf's  spouse,  Dame  Hersent,  have 
passed  all  bounds  of  propriety.  The  Lion  smiles 
cynically,  and  tells  him  he  is  making  too  much  of  a 
small  matter.  The  king  has  no  intention  of  interfer- 
ing in  the  feud  between  the  two,  nor  is  he  inclined  to 
change  his  mind  when  Bruin  the  Bear  implores  him  to 
make  peace  between  his  " barons."  The  lady  protests 
her  innocence  with  many  blushes,  swearing  "by  all  the 
saints  whom  she  adores/'  and  hints  that  Isengrim  is 
unreasonably  jealous.  Others  speak,  but  the  king's 
will  is  inflexible ;  despite  the  manifest  sins  of  Reynard 
he  snubs  Isengrim  again,  who  is  obliged  to  sit  down  in 
discomfiture,  with  his  tail  between  his  legs.  But  sud- 
denly the  scene  changes ;  the  Hen  Pinte  is  brought  in 
on  a  bier,  terribly  mangled  by  the  teeth  of  the  Fox. 
Her  sisters  and  Chanticleer  the  Cock,  filling  the  air  with 
their  lamentations,  act  as  escort.  Chanticleer,  bathing 
the  king's  feet  with  his  tears,  sets  forth  the  harrowing 
details  of  this  latest  crime  of  Reynard;  the  Hens  fall 
swooning  to  the  ground,  and  great  excitement  ensues. 
The  " barons"  demand  vengeance  in  the  high  heroic 
style;  the  monarch,  as  a  man  of  sensibility,  is  pro- 
foundly moved,  and  consents  to  summon  the  Fox  to 
appear  at  court  and  answer  for  his  misdeeds.  But  the 
ambassadors  whom  he  sends,  Bruin  and  Tybert  the 
Cat,  return  torn  and  bleeding,  outwitted  by  the  clever- 
ness of  the  Fox.  Finally  Grimbert  the  Badger,  bear- 
ing the  royal  seal,  succeeds  in  fetching  him.  Reynard 
trembles  as  he  reads  the  summons,  and  wishes  that  he 
were  in  a  position  to  have  the  consolations  of  religion, 
though  he  adds  that  he  hasn't  much  of  an  opinion  of 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX         163 

monks.  ' '  Never  mind  ! ' '  says  Grimbert ,  ' '  confess 
your  sins  to  me."  This  the  Fox  does,  and  Grimbert 
gives  him  absolution.  On  the  next  morning,  he  takes 
a  tearful  leave  of  his  wife,  and  bids  his  children  remem- 
ber their  high  lineage,  and  guard  well  his  castle.  He 
also  sends  up  a  petition  to  the  Almighty  to  strengthen 
him  in  the  approaching  struggle.  Arrived  at  the  court, 
he  finds  all  the  animals  arrayed  against  him,  but  he  is 
no  coward,  and  defends  himself  in  a  most  eloquent 
speech.  The  king  is  unmoved,  however.  "You  talk 
well,  but  you  are  a  traitor,"  he  says,  and  Reynard  is 
condemned  to  death.  There  are  none  so  poor  to  do 
him  reverence ;  even  the  Monkey  makes  faces  at  him. 
The  scaffold  is  raised,  and  now  Reynard  braces  himself 
for  a  supreme  effort,  —  he  informs  the  king  that  he  has 
repented  of  his  sins,  and  that  he  desires  to  go  on  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  The  monarch  is  touched 
with  pity,  and  on  this  condition  grants  him  the  royal 
pardon.  The  queen  presents  him  with  a  ring;  and 
amidst  the  mutterings  of  all  the  other  animals,  he  sets 
out,  in  pilgrim's  weeds,  ostensibly  to  begin  his  long 
journey  then  and  there.  But  once  safe  outside  the 
court  he  defies  the  monarch,  flings  aside  his  pilgrim's 
attire,  and  escapes  to  his  comfortable  dinner  in  the 
fortress  of  Maleperduys. 

Only  the  barest  outlines  of  the  scene  have  been 
given;  it  is  impossible  to  suggest  the  wealth  of  in- 
cident, the  deftness  of  the  characterization,  the  bril- 
liancy of  the  satire.  As  Leopold  Sudre  observes,  "No 
parody  of  the  manners  of  the  times,  of  feudal  usages, 
of  those  solemn  and  terrible  trials  at  the  end  of  which 
a  knight  saved  his  life  by  going  to  the  Holy  Land, 


164  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

surpasses  this  in  pungency  and  subtlety."  It  will  be 
noted  that  the  method  of  treatment,  despite  the  elabo- 
rations, is  in  many  respects  close  to  that  of  the  popu- 
lar beast-tale.  The  idea  of  assembling  the  animals  in 
council  before  their  king  is  of  course  very  common. 
Uncle  Remus  for  one  knows  all  about  such  gatherings. 
"En  w'en  de  Lion  shuck  his  mane,  and  tuck  his  seat 
in  de  big  cheer,  den  de  sesshun  begun  fer  ter  com- 
mence." His  animals  act  just  as  men  would  do  — 
"dey  spoke  speeches,  en  hollered,  en  cusst,  en  flung  der 
langwidge  roun'  des  like  w'en  yo'  daddy  wuz  gwineter 
run  fer  de  legislater  en  got  lef ."  The  difference  in  the 
attitude  of  Mowgli's  companions  is  perfectly  clear. 
They  despise  the  laws  of  human  beings,  and  have  social 
and  legal  arrangements  of  their  own, —  or  rather  of 
Kipling's  own.  In  the  '  Romance  of  Reynard/  on  the 
other  hand,  which  conforms  in  this  respect  far  better 
to  the  truly  popular  type  of  beast-literature,  the  Law 
of  the  Jungle  is  a  travesty  of  human  institutions. 

Reynard  is  a  thoroughly  French  creation;  he  is 
English  only  by  adoption.  He  is  the  embodiment  of 
all  the  deviltry  in  the  Gallic  character,  reduced  to  its 
quintessence,  and  vivified  in  animal  form.  Jusserand 
sees  in  him  the  progenitor  of  a  long  line  of  admirable 
rascals,  —  Panurge,  Scapin,  Figaro.  "  Reynard  is  the 
first  of  the  family;  he  is  such  a  natural  and  spontaneous 
creation  of  the  French  mind  that  we  see  him  appearing 
from  century  to  century,  the  same  character  under 
different  names."  His  figure  derives  its  extraordinary 
piquancy  from  the  brilliancy  of  Gallic  humor.  The 
French  imposed  their  ideal  rascal  upon  their  brother 
nations  as  easily  as  they  did  their  ideal  heroes.  To 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX         165 

their  fostering  care  Reynard  owed  his  reputation  as 
much  as  Arthur  did,  although  the  French  were  no 
more  responsible  for  his  origin  than  they  were  for  the 
presence  of  the  historical  Welsh  leader  on  the  shores 
of  sixth-century  Britain.  Reynard  was  but  a  wanderer 
upon  the  face  of  the  earth  when  the  French  took  him 
to  their  hearts,  and  if  he  proved  an  unruly  child  before 
they  were  done  with  him,  he  also  proved  faithful  to 
the  traditions  of  the  race  which  reared  him. 

What,  then,  is  the  significance  of  his  adventures  for 
the  development  of  the  English  nation?  If  he  is  so 
thoroughly  French  in  all  his  characteristics,  why  ought 
we  to  study  his  exploits  rather  than  those  of  an  English 
hero? 

The  answer  is  perhaps  obvious  enough.  At  the 
time  when  this  story  was  assuming  its  characteristic 
"epic"  form,  a  considerable  part  of  the  English  people 
were  of  French  blood.  The  British  Isles  were  of  course 
full  of  Frenchmen  who  were  a  little  later  to  be  merged 
in  the  newer  nation.  The  dominions  of  the  king  of 
England  lay  partly  in  France,  and  certain  " branches" 
of  the  ' Romance  of  Reynard7  were  composed  in  these 
continental  possessions  of  the  English  sovereigns. 
Intercourse  between  the  two  nations  was  constant  and 
intimate.  The  literature  of  England  from  the  Con- 
quest to  Chaucer  is,  of  course,  not  necessarily  in  the 
English  tongue.  With  the  exception  of  Latin,  French 
was  supreme,  and  few  productions  in  the  vernacular 
during  this  period  were  uninfluenced  by  French  mod- 
els. The  English  metrical  romances,  for  example,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  were  either  directly  translated  or 
adapted  from  the  French.  The  '  Romance  of  Reynard/ 


166  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

then,  is  almost  as  significant  for  England  as  for  France, 
since  it  was  the  production  of  an  integral  part  of  the 
future  English  people.  It  is  significant  also  as  the  ex- 
pression of  a  general  tendency  in  western  European 
literature,  first  manifested  in  France,  and  given  most 
dramatic  expression  in  that  country.  In  outlining  this 
general  tendency  we  are  also  summing  up  the  spirit 
of  the  beast-epic,  and  revealing  the  deepest  significance 
of  its  allegory. 

' Reynard  the  Fox'  is  the  epic  of  disillusionment. 
It  satirizes  everybody  and  everything ;  nothing  is  safe 
from  its  mocking  laughter.  It  forms  a  complete  an- 
tithesis to  the  idealism  of  the  Arthurian  romances. 
The  lofty  resolves,  the  gentle  acts,  the  finer  social  con- 
ventions of  the  system  of  chivalry  are  here  burlesqued. 
The  scene  just  outlined,  for  example,  reduces  to  ab- 
surdity the  ardor  which  found  expression  in  the  Crusades 
and  in  the  legends  of  the  Holy  Grail.  What  becomes 
of  religious  fervor  here  ?  It  is  only  the  trick  by  which 
the  rascally  Fox  cheats  justice,  hoodwinks  the  king, 
and  saves  his  own  skin.  What  is  religion  ?  A  rhapsody 
of  words,  which  the  villain  is  glad  enough  to  patter 
over  in  bad  Latin  with  a  wink  and  a  grin.  What 
is  heroism?  Stealing  and  not  getting  caught.  What 
becomes  of  the  purity  of  woman?  The  ludicrous 
figure  of  Dame  Hersent,  the  she-wolf,  guilty  enough, 
but  blushing  and  protesting,  accusing  her  husband  of 
jealousy,  but  unwilling  to  have  her  virtue  too  closely 
examined.  Reminiscences  of  the  national  epic,  too, 
are  made  to  heighten  the  fun.  King  Noble  tears  his 
mane,  as  Charlemagne  did  his  white  beard,  and  when 
he  exclaims  to  his  barons,  "0  God,  counsel  me  !  What 


THE  HISTORY  OF  REYNARD  THE  FOX         167 

devilishness  do  I  hear  of  this  Reynard  who  has  so 
deceived  me  !  And  I  can  find  no  one  to  avenge  me  on 
this  foe  !"  we  hear  an  echo  of  the  entreaties  of  Char- 
lemagne to  avenge  the  death  of  Roland  on  the  traitor 
Ganelon.  Even  the  hero  of  the  epic  is  himself  ridi- 
culed, as  we  have  seen;  he  is  deceived  by  the  Raven 
and  the  Tom-tit  and  the  Cock.  If  the  story  is  epic  in 
its  breadth,  then,  it  is  all-embracing  in  its  cynicism. 
"The  unholy  Bible  of  the  world, "  one  critic  calls  it, 
and  indeed  it  is  Holy  Writ  and  every  other  sacred 
tradition  turned  wrong  side  out.  It  is  not  always 
bitter ;  the  satire  is  more  often  genial.  But  it  can  take 
nothing  with  reverence ;  it  cannot  relax  for  a  moment 
its  grin  of  humorous  disbelief  in  the  better  motives  of 
mankind.  Traces  of  this  attitude  meet  us  on  every 
hand  in  the  Middle  Ages;  even  religion,  with  all  its 
terrors,  could  not  banish  it.  Men  might  be  doomed  to 
hell-fire,  but  they  sometimes  took  pleasure  in  making 
faces  at  the  devil,  and  occasionally  performing  a  similar 
trick  before  the  Deity.  So  even  in  the  churches  Rey- 
nard and  others  of  his  kind  leer  out  at  us  from  the  pages 
of  illuminated  missals,  or  from  the  carvings  of  miserere- 
stalls,  where  monks  were  wont  to  kneel  in  the  most 
impassioned  of  all  supplications  to  an  unrelenting  God. 
The  'Romance  of  Reynard '  is  the  quintessence  of  that 
mocking  spirit,  the  reaction  against  the  overstrained 
idealism  of  the  system  of  chivalry.  We  have  seen  that 
this  system  carried  with  it  much  that  made  for  greater 
refinement  and  a  better  social  consciousness.  But  it 
left  in  its  wake  a  revolt  in  the  direction  of  materialism 
and  realism.  Men  perceived  the  cupidity  and  hypoc- 
risy of  many  of  those  who  had  declared  their  allegiance 


168  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

to  those  ideals.  In  France  this  spirit  of  disillusion  was 
expressed  by  the  '  Romance  of  Reynard.'  In  Eng- 
land, as  we  shall  see  in  the  next  chapter,  the  Saxon 
elements  in  the  community  uttered  their  protest  through 
the  " proud  outlaw"  Robin  Hood. 


VII 
THE   BALLADS   OF  ROBIN  HOOD 


Under  the  greenwood  tree 
Who  loves  to  lie  with  me, 
And  turn  his  merry  note 
Unto  the  sweet  bird's  throat, 
Come  hither,  come  hither,  come  hither  ! 
Here  shall  he  see 
No  enemy 
But  winter  and  rough  weather. 

—  Shakspere. 


VII 

THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD 

As  patriotic  Americans,  we  are  accustomed  to  speak 
with  a  certain  pride  of  the  achievements  of  American 
poets.  We  point  to  the  graceful  verses  of  Longfellow, 
the  iridescent  lyrics  of  Poe,  the  rugged  lines  of  Whit- 
man, and  the  brilliant  satire  of  Lowell,  as  worthy  to 
stand  beside  the  best  which  the  mother-country  has 
produced  during  the  Victorian  era.  For  the  work  of 
such  men  as  these  and  of  a  host  of  minor  poets  we  have 
abundant  appreciation.  But  only  within  a  short  time 
have  we  taken  any  notice  at  all  of  a  most  interesting 
and  characteristic  variety  of  American  verse,  —  the 
songs  of  the  Western  cowboys.  These  men,  living 
together  on  the  solitary  ranches  of  Texas,  Arizona,  or 
New  Mexico,  have  been  accustomed  to  entertain  each 
other  after  the  day's  work  is  done  by  singing  songs, 
some  of  which  have  been  familiar  to  them  from  boy- 
hood, others  of  which  they  have  actually  composed 
themselves.  Their  ballads  are  rude  poetry,  made  with 
no  thought  of  literary  effect,  but  they  have  a  charm 
of  their  own ;  they  pulse  with  mounting  rhythms,  and 
they  almost  run  to  melody  even  without  the  accom- 
panying music.  The  separate  stanzas  are  sometimes 
followed  by  a  refrain,  in  which  the  entire  listening  com- 

171 


172  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

pany  may  join.  The  subjects  of  the  songs  are  varied, 
—  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  cowboy's  profession, 
the  exploits  of  bold  adventurers,  the  checkered  course 
of  true  love,  —  but  the  sentiment  seldom  degenerates 
into  sentimentality,  and  the  vigor  rarely  becomes  bom- 
bast. It  is  the  verse  of  a  freer  life  than  that  of  the 
dweller  in  cities,  and  it  betrays  its  origin  in  its  rugged 
sincerity. 

I'm  a  rowdy  cowboy  just  off  the  stormy  plains, 
My  trade  is  girting  saddles  and  pulling  bridle  reins, 
Oh,  I  can  tip  the  lasso,  it  is  with  graceful  ease ; 
I  rope  a  streak  of  lightning,  and  ride  it  where  I  please. 
My  bosses  they  all  like  me,  they  say  I  am  hard  to  beat  ; 
I  give  them  the  bold  standoff,  you  bet  I  have  got  the  cheek. 
I  always  work  for  wages,  my  pay  I  get  in  gold ; 
I  am  bound  to  follow  the  longhorn  ^teer  until  I  am  too  old. 
Ci  yi  yip  yip  yip  pe  ya.1 

These  ballads  may  fairly  claim  special  attention, 
not  only  because  they  are  produced  by  Americans  on 
American  soil,  and  because  they  treat  of  native  themes, 
but  because  they  have  been  composed  under  excep- 
tional circumstances.  Most  American  poetry,  like 
most  verse  of  the  present  day,  reflects  in  a  very  high 
degree  the  impressions  of  the  individual  poet.  This 
is  as  true  of  such  men  as  Walt  Whitman  and  his 
followers  as  of  anybody;  Whitman's  work  was  in- 
tensely subjective,  though  he  felt  himself  to  be  a 
mouthpiece  of  universal  human  experience.  These 
cowboy  ballads,  on  the  other  hand,  are  not  the  expres- 
sions of  individuals,  but  of  the  whole  company  which 
listens  to  them,  and  they  are,  in  a  very  real  sense,  the 

1  John  A.  Lomax,  Cowboy  Songs,  New  York,  1910,  p.  310. 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  173 

work  of  other  men  than  the  author.  "  Whatever  the 
most  gifted  man  could  produce  must  bear  the  criticism 
of  the  entire  camp,  and  agree  with  the  ideas  of  a  group 
of  men.  In  this  sense,  therefore,  any  song  that  came 
from  such  a  group  would  be  the  joint  product  of  a 
number  of  them,  telling  perhaps  the  story  of  some 
stampede  they  had  all  fought  to  turn,  some  crime  in 
which  they  had  all  shared  equally,  some  comrade's 
tragic  death  which  they  had  all  witnessed.'7  The 
author  counts  for  nothing,  it  will  be  observed;  his 
name  is  generally  not  remembered,  and  what  he  invents 
is  as  characteristic  of  his  comrades  as  of  himself.  The 
lines  celebrating  the  career  of  Bill  Peters,  the  stage 
driver,  are  fairly  typical. 

Bill  Peters  was  a  hustler 

From  Independence  town ; 

He  warn't  a  college  scholar 

Nor  man  of  great  renown, 

But  Bill  had  a  way  o'  doing  things 

And  dohV  'em  up  brown. 

Bill  driv  the  stage  from  Independence 

Up  to  the  Smoky  Hill; 

And  everybody  knowed  him  thar 

As  Independence  Bill,  — 

Thar  warn't  no  feller  on  the  route 

That  driv  with  half  the  skill. 


The  way  them  wheels  Vd  rattle, 

And  the  way  the  dust  Vd  fly, 

You'd  think  a  million  cattle 

Had  stampeded  and  gone  by ; 

But  the  mail  Vd  get  thar  just  the  same, 

If  the  horses  had  to  die. 


174  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

He  driv  that  stage  for  many  a  year 
Along  the  Smoky  Hill, 
And  a  pile  o'  wild  Comanches 
Did  Bill  Peters  have  to  kill,  — 
And  I  reckon  if  he'd  had  good  luck 
He'd  been  a  drivin'  still. 

But  he  chanced  one  day  to  run  agin 

A  bullet  made  o'  lead, 

Which  was  harder  than  he  bargained  for, 

And  now  poor  Bill  is  dead  ; 

And  when  they  brung  his  body  home 

A  barrel  of  tears  was  shed. 

Here  we  have  literature  which  is  a  perfect  index  of  the 
social  ideals  of  the  body  of  men  among  whom  it  is 
composed,  literature  which  makes  no  pretense  to 
literary  form  or  to  disclosure  of  the  emotions  of  any 
one  man  as  distinguished  from  his  fellows.  There  are 
few  communities  of  the  present  day  which  are  as 
closely  united  in  common  aims  and  sympathies  as  these 
bands  of  Western  cowboys,  hence  there  are  few  oppor- 
tunities for  the  production  of  verse  which  is  as  truly 
the  expression  of  universal  emotions  as  are  these  songs. 
Such  Western  ranches  reproduce  almost  perfectly 
the  conditions  under  which  the  English  popular  ballads 
were  composed.  Among  the  country  folk  of  England 
in  the  old  days  there  was  the  same  spontaneous  desire 
to  tell  a  story  in  song,  —  a  desire  as  old  as  humanity 
itself,  —  the  same  absence  of  conscious  art  in  the 
making  of  these  songs,  the  same  picturesque  vigor  of 
narration.  The  ballads  were  meant  to  be  sung,  as  is 
shown  by  the  refrains,  which  were  sometimes  meaning- 
less, a  mere  accompaniment  to  the  tune,  like  the  "ci 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  175 

yi  yip  yip  yip  pe  ya"  of  the  cowboy  song,  sometimes  a 
sort  of  chorus,  emphasizing  the  point  of  the  story  itself. 
There  was  none  of  the  appeal  of  the  printed  page  to 
the  eye  of  the  reader  upon  which  modern  verse  relies 
so  much  for  its  effect.  They  were  the  songs  of  any  man 
and  of  every  man,  written  indeed  by  some  individual, 
but  not  thought  of  as  his  work,  hardly  existing  until 
accepted  by  the  community  as  a  whole,  and  altered 
at  will  by  any  of  the  members  of  this  community. 
Thus  the  old  English  ballads  were,  just  like  the  cow- 
boy songs,  reflections  of  the  ideals  of  those  who  pro- 
duced them,  and  they  afford  most  valuable  testimony 
to  the  social  development  of  people  in  the  lower  walks 
of  life. 

We  all  know  how  much  influence  these  communal 
ballads  have  exerted  upon  the  poetry  of  conscious  art. 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Keats,  Longfellow,  Morris,  Ros- 
setti,  all  learned  much  from  the  ballads, ,  and  a  multi- 
tude of  lesser  men  have  been  profoundly  affected  by 
them.  It  is  a  curious  thing  that  direct  imitations  have 
seldom  been  successful;  it  is  as  difficult  to  reproduce 
precisely  the  effect  of  verse  composed  under  conditions 
which  rarely  exist  at  the  present  day  as  it  is  for  a  gar- 
dener to  suggest,  by  artificial  cultivation,  the  unspoiled 
charm  of  nature  in  the  woods  and  fields.  Two  men 
have,  in  different  ways,  achieved  the  greatest  measure 
of  success  in  ballad-writing,  two  men  whom  we  have 
already  noted  as  possessing  something  of  the  medieval 
temper,  —  Scott  and  Kipling.  Sir  Walter  went  to 
school  to  ballad-poetry  as  a  boy,  and  his  later  work  is 
full  of  its  swinging  rhythms  and  its  picturesque  phrases. 
He  could  counterfeit  it,  too,  in  such  a  masterly  way 


176  '       MEDIEVAL  STORY 

that  no  one  can  tell,  at  the  present  day,  how  much  of 
the  " emended"  ballad  of  'Kinmont  Willie'  which  he 
printed  in  his  '  Minstrelsy  of  the  Scottish  Border/  is 
due  to  him  and  how  much  to  tradition.  Kipling  has 
proceeded  in  a  different  fashion.  He  has  set  forth  in 
ballad- verse  the  emotions  of  a  distinct  class,  the  British 
soldiery.  Tommy  Atkins  is  the  whole  army  of  privates 
and  petty  officers  rolled  into  one,  and  what  he  sings 
in  the  barrack-room  comes  very  close  to  the  universal- 
ity of  the  ballads  of  the  medieval  English  peasantry 
or  of  the  Texas  cowboys.  He  and  his  comrades  are 
intellectually  on  much  the  same  plane  as  their  British 
ancestors  or  their  American  neighbors;  Bill  'Awkins 
is  first  cousin  to  Kinmont  Willie  and  Bill  Peters. 
Although  coming  from  the  pen  of  a  man  of  letters, 
this  expression  of  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the 
British  soldier  demands,  through  its  sympathetic 
understanding,  almost  as  much  attention  as  if  it  had 
actually  come  from  members  of  the  class  it  describes. 

The  ballads  of  Robin  Hood  are  much  simpler  than 
most  of  the  verse  which  we  have  been  considering, 
We  have  generally  been  obliged  to  look  at  popular 
stories  in  their  more  sophisticated  forms,  stories  which 
were  once  out  in  the  open  country,  but  which  have 
in  time  become  the  property  of  the  higher  classes  of 
society.  We  have  always  tried  to  follow  these  stories 
back  into  their  simpler  forms;  we  have  seen  how 
fairy-tales  show  the  earlier  stages  of  the  story  of  Beo- 
wulf and  the  demon  Grendel,  or  how  old  Celtic  narra- 
tives reveal  the  pagan  beginnings  of  the  Quest  of  the 
Holy  Grail,  and  we  have  observed  that  the  origins  of 
the  story  of  Roland  are  to  be  sought  among  the  people. 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  177 

But  we  have  seldom  been  able  to  get  at  these  earlier 
versions  in  a  satisfactory  way.  Here,  however,  in  the 
Robin  Hood  ballads,  we  have  the  actual  beginnings  of 
a  great  story  among  the  folk,  not  its  transformation  at 
the  hands  of  more  cultured  men.  For  once,  we  are  at 
the  fountainhead  of  song,  rather  than  beside  the  brim- 
ming river  of  epic. 

It  is  from  such  songs  as  these  that  an  epic  is  made, 
however,  partly  by  the  natural  combination  of  a  number 
of  these  into  a  group,  but  mainly  by  the  alterations  and 
additions  of  some  one  gifted  poet,  who  has  the  courage 
to  do  what  he  chooses  with  the  narrative  material 
before  him,  rejecting  here,  amplifying  there,  —  in  brief, 
shaping  what  was  formerly  ill-ordered  and  inconsistent 
into  a  well-rounded  whole.  While  he  may  preserve 
much  of  the  popular  character  of  this  material,  he 
makes  of  it  something  different,  something  artistic. 
But  the  hand  of  such  a  craftsman  as  molded  '  Beowulf 
or  the  'Song  of  Roland'  or  the  'Nibelungenlied'  has 
never  touched  the  ballads.  An  effort  has  indeed  been 
made  to  combine  certain  of  them  in  the  long  ballad, 
or  rather  collection  of  ballads,  called  '  The  Gest  of  Robin 
Hood/  Here  we  have  a  variety  of  pieces  set  end  for 
end,  with  some  care  for  transition  and  order.  But 
this  reveals  the  timid  prentice  hand  of  a  country  fellow, 
trying  vaguely  to  do  something  to  which  the  ballad- 
singing  folk  were  unaccustomed.  The  simple  ballad 
they  understood ;  they  were  unprepared  for  the  fuller 
narrative  of  epic,  which  requires  a  greater  art  than 
theirs,  an  art  where  the  poet  of  superior  attainment 
steps  in,  and  addresses  an  audience  of  different  char- 
acter. 


178  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

The  chief  reason,  perhaps,  why  the  Robin  Hood 
ballads  were  never  worked  up  into  elaborate  epic  form 
is  that  by  their  very  nature  they  would  make  no 
appeal  to  that  more  exalted  class  of  society  which 
welcomes  an  epic  on  the  grand  scale.  Robin  Hood's 
chief  energies,  as  we  shall  see,  were  directed  towards 
righting  the  abuses  inflicted  by  the  upper  classes  on 
those  of  lower  social  station.  Consequently  his  ex- 
ploits appealed  only  to  the  common  people;  the 
upper  classes  would  not  have  felt  enthusiastic  about 
perpetuating  them.  The  case  was  quite  different  with 
such  a  hero  as  Arthur,  who,  a  popular  champion, 
was  revered  in  the  beginning  as  a  national  figure, 
and  not  as  the  representative  of  any  one  class  of 
society.  There  were  indeed  no  such  clearly  marked 
social  divisions  in  the  old  days  when  Arthur  led  the 
Celts  to  victory  as  there  were  when  Robin  Hood  came 
into  existence.  It  was  possible  for  Arthur  later  on  to 
become  a  paragon  of  chivalry,  the  ideal  of  the  upper 
classes,  because  his  figure  was  so  shadowy  that  any 
use  could  easily  be  made  of  it.  He  had  no  individuality 
beyond  his  successes  in  war.  Not  so  with  Robin 
Hood.  His  whole  existence  depended  upon  his  char- 
acter as  a  " proud  outlaw,"  and  nothing  could  make 
him  into  a  conventional  member  of  society.  Born  as 
a  hero  of  the  common  people,  he  always  retained  that 
distinction,  and  he  never  could  have  lost  it  without 
forfeiting  everything  which  made  him  recognizable  as 
an  individual.  Can  we  imagine  him  putting  off  the 
Lincoln  green  and  dwelling  in  happiness  in  the  royal 
court?  The  ballads  tell  us  that  he  once  tried  it, 
and  was  restless  until  he  could  resume  his  former  life 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD      179 

once  more.  He  was  no  subject  for  a  stately  epic,  — 
not  even  for  one  of  the  semi-primitive  type  of  the 
'Song  of  Roland/  He  belongs,  not  in  the  close  air  of 
courts,  but  out  of  doors,  in  the  midst  of  the  common 
people. 

Robin  Hood  is  in  no  sense  a  historical  character. 
The  incarnation  of  democratic  revolt,  as  Sigurd  was  the 
embodiment  of  valor,  he  was  born,  not  of  human  par- 
ents, but  of  the  imagination  of  the  English  peasantry. 
He  was  an  outlaw,  because  he  was  created  to  typify 
resistance  to  abuses  of  the  law.  There  is  something 
about  an  outlaw  which  has  always  appealed  to  popular 
sympathy.  The  bold  man  who  plays  a  desperate  and 
dangerous  game,  with  the  organized  forces  of  society 
against  him,  exercises  a  singular  fascination  over  us 
all.  We  have  had  occasion  to  observe  this  in  the 
romance  of  '  Reynard  the  Fox.'  The  Western  cow- 
boys delight  in  celebrating  such  heroes  as  Jesse 
James,  or  Cole  Younger,  the  bank  robber.  Something 
more  than  mere  delight  in  dashing  outlawry  has  gone 
to  the  making  of  the  figure  of  Robin  Hood,  however, 
—  he  typifies  above  all  else  the  protest  of  the  English 
people  against  social  injustice;  he  voices  the  growing 
independence  of  the  commons. 

These  ballads  impress  us  first,  not  by  their  protest, 
but  by  their  picturesqueness.  The  action  takes  place 
in  the  open  air,  sometimes  in  the  depths  of  the  forest, 
with  the  deer  and  the  fawns  peeping  shyly  through  the 
trees,  sometimes  on  the  highroad,  sometimes  in  a 
woodland  glade,  where  a  feast  is  spread  on  the  green 
grass,  and  the  arching  branches  overhead  make  a 
vaulted  banqueting-hall  more  majestic  than  any  that 


180  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

the  king  can  claim.  It  is  always  summer ;  there  is  no 
suggestion  of  the  rigors  of  winter,  or  the  possible  in- 
conveniences of  the  soaking  English  rains  to  woodland 
rovers.  Again  and  again  the  beautiful  lines  recur,  in 
varying  forms  :  — 

In  somer,  when  the  shawes  be  sheyne, 

And  leves  be  large  and  long, 
Hit  is  fill  mery  in  feyre  foreste 

To  here  the  f oulys  song : 

To  se  the  dere  draw  to  the  dale, 

And  leve  the  hilles  hee, 
And  shadow  hem  in  the  leves  grene, 

Under  the  grene-wode  tree. 

The  whole  tone  of  the  ballads  is  in  keeping  with  this 
charming  background.  They  are  cheerful  verse ;  every- 
thing is  "merry,"  even  the  priory  where  Robin  Hood 
meets  his  death!  England  is  "merry,"  Sherwood 
forest  is  "merry,"  and  Robin  himself  is  "merry  as 
bird  on  bough,"  for  the  charm  of  the  woodlands  is 
as  potent  with  him  as  with  us.  All  this  enthusiasm 
for  the  woodland  life,  for  hunting  and  feasting,  for 
archery  and  for  rustic  sports,  is  not  mere  decoration  ; 
it  is  an  important  part  of  the  story.  If  ever  verse 
lashed  abuses  with  a  smile,  it  is  this.  The  sun  shines 
brightly  overhead;  it  is  a  good  world  to  be  alive  in,  its 
wrongs  are  being  righted,  and  its  very  misfortunes  are 
ultimately  to  bring  happier  times. 

Robin  leads  an  adventurous  life,  but  there  is  a  cer- 
tain sameness  about  his  experiences,  as  related  in  the 
single  ballads.  He  is  always  meeting  some  adversary 
whose  strength  and  courage  are  sufficient  excuse  for 
arranging  a  good  fight  on  the  spot,  to  prove  which  of 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  181 

them  is  the  better  man.  The  stout  stranger  may  be  a 
tanner  or  a  tinker  or  a  shepherd  or  a  clouted  beggar, 
and  sometimes  he  gets  the  best  of  it,  and  Robin  is 
beaten.  But  it  is  noticeable  that  if  the  hero  is  over- 
come in  one  of  these  struggles,  it  is  by  one  of  the  com- 
mon people,  not  by  a  man  of  the  despised  upper  classes. 
The  defeat  of  Robin  Hood  belongs  rather  to  sub- 
sequent tradition.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  later 
generations  often  lose  faith  in  a  great  hero,  and 
like  to  see  him  come  to  grief.  Many  of  these 
ballads  are  too  late  and  fantastic  to  be  treated  as  part 
of  the  same  impulse  which  produced  the  earlier  speci- 
mens. When  Robin  Hood  wearies  of  chasing  the  fallow 
deer  and  resolves  to  go  to  Scarborough  and  become  a 
fisherman,  or  when  he  forsakes  Sherwood  forest  and 
wanders  into  the  unreal  land  of  romance  to  fight  with 
the  Prince  of  Aragon,  while  Little  John  makes  things 
uncomfortable  for  a  giant,  —  then  it  is  time  to  take 
leave  of  him  and  his  merry  men. 

It  is  better  for  us  to  fix  our  attention  on  the  'Gest 
of  Robin  Hood/  that  curious  poem,  too  long  to  be 
called  a  ballad,  too  short  and  crude  to  be  called  an 
epic,  yet  on  its  way  to  epic  form  because  it  narrates  a 
story  of  some  length  and  elaboration  centering  about 
a  single  figure,  and  in  a  heroic  rather  than  a  romantic 
vein.  Here  Robin  appears  at  his  very  best,  less  a  mere 
swashbuckler  holding  the  open  championship  of  merry 
England  in  a  free-for-all  fight,  and  more  a  person  of 
character  and  reflection  and  convictions  about  the  in- 
equalities of  society.  As  far  as  it  goes,  it  sets  forth 
what  is  most  worth  while  in  the  life  of  Robin  Hood 
down  to  the  time  of  his  death.  It  does  not  bother 


182  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

to  invent  a  birth  and  boyhood  for  him,  as  one  of  the 
inferior  later  ballads  does  ;  it  introduces  him  to  us  im- 
mediately as  "standing  in  Bernesdale,"  leaning  against 
a  tree.  The  'Gest'  is  right;  that  is  the  way  that 
Robin  was  born,  full-grown  and  clad  in  Lincoln  green, 
sprung  out  of  the  depths  of  the  forest,  like  Minerva 

.  full-armed  from  the  head  of  Jove.  The  ablest  of  his 
yeomen  were  Little  John,  Much  the  miller's  son,  and 
Scarlet  or  Scathelock.  Not  until  later  did  such  char- 
acters as  Allen  a  Dale,  Maid  Marian,  and  Friar  Tuck 
join  the  band.  There  is  no  occasion  for  Robin  Hood 
to  feel  that  his  company  is  too  small,  however ;  he  has 
seven  score  of  these  sturdy  yeomen  to  do  his  bidding, 
amply  sufficient  to  make  him  indeed  a  man  to  be  feared 
by  all  who  cross  his  path. 

/  The  moment  the  curtain  rises,  we  find  Robin  itch- 
ing for  an  adventure.  He  cannot  get  up  an  appetite 
for  dinner  until  he  has  forced  some  wealthy  malefactor 
to  share  his  meal,  and  pay  well  for  it  afterwards. 
Before  his  desire  is  satisfied,  we  are  told  a  good  deal 
about  his  character.  This  is  doubly  significant,  because 
it  is  not  the  habit  of  the  ballads  to  dwell  much  on  per- 
sonal description;  they  are  far  more  concerned  with 
deeds.  But  Robin  Hood  was  no  ordinary  outlaw ;  he 
was  careful  of  religious  observances,  he  never  sat  down 
to  dine  until  he  had  heard  three  masses,  one  in  honor 
of  the  Father,  another  in  honor  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
and  the  third  in  honor  of  the  Virgin  Mary.  Although 
he  plundered  " fat-headed'7  and  fat-pursed  monks,  he 
was  no  infidel.  He  loved  the  Virgin  so  much  that  he 
would  never  harm  any  company  in  which  there  was  a 
woman.  He  was  always  courteous ;  of  this  we  are  re- 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  183 

minded  again  and  again.  His  character  is  still  further 
set  forth  in  the  instructions  which  he  gives  to  Little 
John. 

"Maistar,"  than  sayde  Lytil  Johnn, 

"And  we  our  borde  shal  sprede, 
Tel  us  wheder  that  we  shal  go, 

And  what  life  that  we  shall  lede. 

"Where  we  shall  take,  where  we  shall  leve, 

Where  we  shall  abide  behynde, 
Where  we  shall  robbe,  where  we  shall  reve, 

Where  we  shall  bete  and  bynde." 

"Thereof  no  force,"  than  sayde  Robyn ; 

"We  shall  do  well  inowe; 
But  loke  ye  do  no  husbonde  harme, 

That  tilleth  with  his  ploughe. 

"No  more  ye  shall  no  gode  yeman 

That  walketh  by  grene-wode  shawe ; 
Ne  no  knyght  ne  no  squyer 

That  wol  be  a  gode  felawe. 

"These  bisshopes  and  these  arche-bisshopes, 

Ye  shall  them  bete  and  bynde ; 
The  hye  sherif  of  Notyingham, 

Hym  holde  ye  in  your  mynde." 

"This  worde  shal  be  holde,"  sayde  Lytell  Johnn, 

"And  this  lesson  we  shall  lere; 
It  is  f er  dayes ;  God  send  us  a  gest, 
,      That  we  were  at  oure  dynere  ! " 

Presently  a  stranger  comes  riding  by.  He  is  a 
knight,  but  no  proud  and  haughty  warrior;  on  the 
contrary,  his  hood  is  falling  over  his  eyes,  one  foot 
dangles  carelessly  from  the  stirrup,  everything  about 


184  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

him  indicates  the  deepest  dejection.  Little  John  wel- 
comes him  to  the  greenwood  and  invites  him  to  dine 
with  his  master.  After  a  bounteous  meal  of  bread  and 
wine  and  venison  and  all  kinds  of  game,  Robin  suggests 
that  he  pay  for  his  entertainment,  but  the  knight 
replies  that  he  has  but  ten  shillings  to  his  name.  Little 
John  prudently  tests  the  truth  of  this  statement,  but 
finds  only  just  this  sum  in  the  knight's  coffers.  Robin 
refuses  to  take  so  small  an  amount,  and  inquires  the  rea- 
son of  his  guest's  gloomy  demeanor.  The  knight  replies 
that  he  owes  four  hundred  pounds  to  a  rich  abbot, 
that  he  has  been  obliged  to  pledge  his  lands  in  satis- 
faction of  the  debt,  and  that  his  friends  have  all  failed 
him.  The  sympathies  of  the  robbers  are  touched; 
Robin  offers  to  lend  him  the  money  himself.  So  the 
knight  goes  rejoicing  on  his  way  to  settle  the  debt, 
with  a  new  gown  and  horse,  new  boots  and  spurs,  and 
Little  John  acting  as  escort.  The  next  scene  is  in  the 
abbot's  hall.  The  knight  pleads  earnestly  with  the 
abbot  and  with  the  justice  and  the  high  sheriff  of 
Nottingham  to  grant  him  an  extension  of  time.  He 
offers  to  serve  the  abbot,  but  all  to  no  purpose;  the 
abbot  orders  him  to  leave. 

"Out,"  he  sayde,  "thou  false  knyght, 
Spede  the  out  of  my  hall !" 

Then,  just  at  the  dramatic  moment,  the  knight  pro- 
duces his  four  hundred  pounds,  and  settles  the  debt. 
He  then  goes 'home  with  a  light  heart,  and  in  due 
course  of  time  gets  sufficient  money  to  repay  Robin 
Hood. 

Meanwhile,  the  outlaws  have  been  having  various 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  185 

adventures.  The  time  for  the  repayment  of  the  money 
is  at  hand,  and  again  Little  John  goes  forth  to  stop 
travelers  on  the  highway,  that  his  master  may  not  lack 
a  guest  for  dinner.  This  time  two  black  monks  fall 
into  the  net,  one  of  whom  proves  to  be  the  "high 
cellarer"  of  the  very  abbey  which  had  treated  the  good 
knight  so  shamefully.  Little  John  discovers  more  than 
eight  hundred  pounds  in  his  coffers,  which  is  duly 
transferred  to  the  greenwood  treasury. 

"Grete  well  your  abbot/7  sayd  Robyn, 

"And  your  pry  our,  I  you  pray, 
And  byd  hym  sende  me  such  a  monke 

To  dyner  every  day." 

The  knight  now  appears,  with  apologies  for  his  late- 
ness, —  he  has  been  helping  a  poor  yeoman,  who  was 
being  ill-treated.  He  offers  to  pay  his  debt,  but 
Robin  refuses  to  take  his  money,  saying  that  he  has 
already  received  it  from  the  high  cellarer  of  the  abbey. 
Moreover,  he  insists  that  the  knight  shall  take  the  extra 
four  hundred  pounds  which  the  monk  has  just  been 
forced  to  surrender.  And  so,  with  good  wishes  on 
either  side,  Robin  and  the  knight  take  leave  of  each 
other. 

Here  Robin  appears  not  only  as  the  champion  of  the 
distressed  and  needy,  but  as  the  -enemy  of  rich  and 
unprincipled  ecclesiastics.  The  churchmen  always  get 
but  scant  consideration  in  these  ballads.  They  are 
not  only  in  possession  of  much  ill-gotten  wealth ;  they 
are  uncharitable  and  discourteous.  The  abbot  dis- 
misses the  knight  with  insult ;  the  black  monks  in  the 
forest  treat  Robin  with  incivility.  It  is  interesting 
to  see  such  purely  popular  literature  as  this  insisting 


186  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

so  much  on  courtesy.  The  ideals  of  the  aristocracy 
have  filtered  down  to  the  lower  classes;  the  heroes  of 
romance  no  longer  have  a  monopoly  of  politeness,  they 
share  it  with  the  champions  of  popular  story.  Again, 
it  is  significant  that  Robin  Hood  does  not  spare  the 
monks,  although  they  belong  to  the  abbey  of  St.  Mary 
the  Virgin,  his  patron  saint.  Even  if  they  have  dedi- 
cated themselves  to  the  service  of  Our  Lady,  they  are  so 
false  and  treacherous  as  to  deserve  no  mercy.  Noth- 
ing reveals  more  strikingly  than  this  the  intense  hatred 
which  the  common  people  felt  for  the  wealthy  religious 
orders. 

But  the  arch-enemy  of  Robin  Hood  is  the  high  sheriff 
of  Nottingham,  the  representative  of  the  law  in  the 
particular  district  in  which  Robin  resides.  Taken 
against  his  will  and  forced  to  dine  with  Robin  in  the 
forest,  the  sheriff  has  a  most  uncomfortable  time.  He 
is  forced  to  see  the  greenwood  feast  decorated  with  silver 
vessels  stolen  from  his  own  table,  and  to  spend  the  night 
in  the  open  air.  The  ballad  takes  a  certain  delight  in 
the  humor  of  the  situation. 

All  nyght  lay  the  proude  sherif 

In  his  breche  and  in  his  schert ; 
No  wonder  it  was,  in  grene  wode, 

Though  his  sydes  gan  to  smerte. 

> 
"Make  glade  chere,"  sayde  Robyn  Hode, 

"Sheref,  for  charite; 
For  this  is  our  ordre  i-wys, 

Under  the  grene-wode  tree/' 

"This  is  harder  order, "  sayde  the  sherief, 
"Than  any  ankir  or  frere ; 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  187 

For  all  the  golde  in  mery  Englonde 
I  wolde  not  longe  dwell  here." 


"Lat  me  go,"  than  sayde  the  sherif, 

"For  saynte  charite, 
And  I  wol  be  the  beste  frende 

That  ever  yet  had  ye." 

So  the  sheriff  swears  a  great  oath  never  again  to  perse- 
cute Robin  and  his  men,  and  is  suffered  to  go  his  way. 
But  he  is  false  as  water,  and  he  breaks  his  pledge.  In 
the  end,  however,  after  some  stiff  and  joyous  fighting, 
he  comes  to  grief.  In  all  these  episodes  the  under- 
lying motive,  it  will  be  perceived,  is  the  injustice  of 
organized  authority,  as  contrasted  with  the  justice  of 
the  greenwood. 

It  must  be  observed,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  out- 
laws themselves  do  not  deal  altogether  fairly  with  the 
sheriff.  From  the  modern  point  of  view,  Little  John 
is  quite  as  treacherous  as  he.  At  a  contest  in  archery, 
the  wonderful  shooting  of  Little  John  so  arouses  the 
sheriff's  admiration  that  he  takes  the  yeoman,  who 
promptly  gives  a  false  name,  into  his  service,  bestowing 
upon  him  a  good  horse  and  twenty  marks  a  year.  But 
Little  John  is  no  true  servant.  He  plunders  the  sheriff's 
house,  carrying  away  silver  vessels  and  money,  and 
persuading  one  of  the  cooks  in  the  kitchen  to  desert 
his  master.  All  his  booty  he  lays  before  Robin  Hood, 
and  then  betrays  the  sheriff  into  his  hands.  Under 
such  circumstances,  one  cannot  but  feel  some  sympathy 
with  the  unlucky  official.  The  relation  between  master 
and  man  was  in  those  days  held  to  be  peculiarly  sacred, 


188  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

and,  in  proving  unfaithful,  Little  John  was  certainly 
guilty  of  dishonorable  conduct.  His  justification  in 
the  ballads  lies  in  the  implication  that  he  stands  for  the 
Right,  and  that  the  sheriff  stands  for  the  Wrong,  and 
that  in  fighting  evil  anything  is  allowable.  The  Middle 
Ages  believed  firmly  in  the  doctrine  that  the  end  justi- 
fies the  means,  and  that  no  feelings  of  consideration 
or  humanity  need  influence  treatment  of  the  wicked. 

Very  different  from  Robin's  attitude  towards  the  high 
sheriff  of  Nottingham  is  his  behavior  to  the  king.  Ob- 
viously, he  makes  a  sharp  distinction  between  local  and 
national  authority.  The  power  of  the  sheriff  is  to  be 
flouted ;  the  power  of  the  ruler  of  all  England  is  to  be 
respected.  When  Robin  sees  the  royal  seal,  he  falls 
on  his  knees,  and  protests  that  he  loves  no  man  in  the 
world  so  well  as  he  does  his  sovereign.  In  the  green- 
wood there  are  plenty  of  merry  adventures  in  which 
the  king  takes  part,  but  there  is  never  any  suggestion 
of  a  clash  between  the  royal  authority  and  the  customs 
of  the  outlaws.  There  is  none  too  much  dignity  about 
the  monarch  of  the  ballads;  he  seems  to  have  little  else 
to  do  than  to  indulge  in  woodland  pranks,  assuming  the 
Lincoln  green  of  the  outlaws,  and  frightening  the  good 
people  of  Nottingham  out  of  their  wits,  or  going  dis- 
guised into  the  forest,  and  joining  in  the  woodland 
sports.  He  has  something  of  the  operatic  sovereign 
about  him.  But  the  moment  he  is  recognized,  down 
go  all  the  merry  men  on  their  knees.  These  ballads, 
then,  are  thoroughly  patriotic.  If  they  protest  against 
abuses  of  Church  and  State,  they  nevertheless  breathe 
allegiance  to  England.  And  the  king,  for  his  part, 
treats  Robin  Hood  with  distinguished  consideration,  — 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  189 

the  fact  that  he  is  a  " proud  outlaw"  makes  no  differ- 
ence. Indeed,  the  term  " outlaw"  seems  to  be  rather  a 
compliment  than  a  reproach.  It  does  not  mean  what 
we  may  hastily  conclude  that  it  means  from  modern 
usage.  The  leader  of  this  forest  company  is  an  outlaw 
only  in  that  he  refuses  to  recognize  the  authority  of 
unprincipled  public  servants;  for  the  highest  law  in 
the  land,  as  embodied  in  the  person  of  the  king,  he  has 
the  deepest  respect. 

Robin  Hood  is  one  of  those  heroes  whose  fame  rests 
rather  on  a  well-spent  life  than  upon  an  heroic  death. 
He  does  not  sacrifice  everything  in  one  supreme  moment, 
as  Beowulf  does  when  he  meets  the  dragon,  or  as  Roland 
does  in  the  pass  of  Roncesvalles.  His  death  is  rather 
an  epilog  than  a  chief  action  in  the  drama  of  his  career. 
It  was  necessary,  however,  to  explain  the  disappearance 
of  so  popular  a  figure,  and  so  imagination  has  created  a 
circumstantial  story  of  his  last  moments  on  earth,  told 
most  fully  in  the  ballad  of  '  Robin  Hood's  Death/ 
The  pleasant  life  in  the  greenwood  has  not  protected 
Robin  from  illness  ;  he  feels  that  no  meat  nor  drink  will 
satisfy  him  until  his  veins  have  been  opened,  and  some 
of  his  blood  has  been  let  out,  —  the  sovereign  remedy 
of  the  old  days  for  many  of  the  ills  of  the  flesh.  His 
kinswoman,  the  Prioress  of  Kirklees,  will  perform  this 
service  for  him,  and  so  he  takes  leave  of  his  merry  men, 
and,  with  no  attendant  but  little  John,  goes  off  to  seek 
her.  But  the  Prioress  is  a  wicked  woman ;  she  opens 
his  veins,  and  leaves  him  to  bleed  to  death.  When  he 
is  far  spent,  he  faintly  sounds  his  horn  for  help,  like 
Roland,  and  Little  John  comes  in  to  soothe  his  dying 
moments.  The  details  of  this  last  scene  differ;  one 


190  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

account  adds  a  villain,  "Red  Roger/'  who  thrusts  him 
through  the  " milk- white  side'7  as  he  lies  all  faint  from 
loss  of  blood.  Probably  this  was  considered  a  more 
heroic  end  than  the  slow  process  of  bleeding  to  death. 
There  is  a  certain  satisfaction  in  having  the  wounded 
hero  make  " dog's  meat"  of  his  assassin,  with  a  mighty 
blow  in  the  back.  But  Robin  Hood  will  not  grant  the 
prayer  of  Little  John,  who  proposes  to  burn  the  priory 
of  Kirklees  in  revenge  :  — 

"Now  nay,  now  nay,"  quoth  Robin  Hood, 

"That  boon  I'll  not  grant  thee  ; 
I  never  hurt  woman  in  all  my  life, 

Nor  men  in  woman's  company. 

"I  never  hurt  fair  maid  in  all  my  time, 

Nor  at  mine  end  shall  it  be ; 
But  give  me  my  bent  bow  in  my  hand, 

And  a  broad  arrow  I'll  let  flee 
And  where  this  arrow  is  taken  up, 

There  shall  my  grave  digged  be. 

"Lay  me  a  green  sod  under  my  head, 

And  another  at  my  feet ; 
And  lay  my  bent  bow  at  my  side, 

Which  was  my  music  sweet ; 
And  make  my  grave  of  gravel  and  green, 

•Which  is  most  right  and  meet. 

"Let  me  have  length  and  breadth  enough, 

With  a  green  sod  under  my  head, 
That  they  may  say,  when  I  am  dead, 

Here  lies  bold  Robin  Hood." 

These  words  they  readily  granted  him, 

Which  did  bold  Robin  please : 
And  there  they  buried  bold  Robin  Hood, 

Within  the  fair  Kirkleys. 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  191 

In  view  of  the  whole  tone  and  spirit  of  the  Robin 
Hood  ballads,  the  almost  complete  absence  of  woman 
and  the  love-element  is  hardly  surprising.  Women  do 
not  belong  in  the  rough  outdoor  life  of  the  greenwood. 
It  is  no  place  for  homes  and  children,  and  the  sturdy 
morality  of  the  English  folk  would  tolerate  no  light 
loves,  no  daughters  of  the  regiment  of  easy  virtue  in 
such  a  company  as  this.  The  reproach  of  unchastity  is 
reserved  for  the  Prioress.  We  may  be  sure,  too,  that 
the  fact  that  Robin  meets  his  death  at  the  hands  of  a 
member  of  the  hated  religious  orders  is  not  without 
significance.  Maid  Marian,  of  course,  does  not  be- 
long in  the  good  old  Robin  Hood  tradition;  she  was 
added  to  it  in  later  times.  Like  Beowulf  and  Roland, 
Robin  Hood  has  weightier  things  to  think  about  than 
the  love  of  woman.  He  holds  them  in  all  reverence, 
but  they  make  but  little  appeal  to  him.  It  is  a  sur- 
vival of  the  old  heroic  spirit,  which  scorns  to  fall  captive 
to  the  softer  emotions  that  enthrall  the  champions  of 
Romance.  Gawain  or  Lancelot  was  easily  won  over 
by  a  pretty  face,  —  for  them  there  lay  more  peril  in  a 
lady's  eyes  than  in  twenty  swords,  indeed.  But  Robin 
Hood  is  a  prey  to  no  such  weakness.  He  has  achieved 
the  community  in  which  women  have  no  part,  dreamed 
of  by  the  King  of  Navarre  in  Shakspere's  '  Love's 
Labor's  Lost/  and  no  Princess  appears  to  show  him  the 
folly  of  his  ways. 

We  shall  not  be  far  wrong  if  we  assign  the  ballads 
which  we  have  here  been  considering,  those  in  which  the 
hero  has  a  dignity  and  a  simplicity  unmarred  by  the 
trivialities  of  later  times,  to  the  fourteenth  century. 
This  was  a  period  of  unrest  and  confusion  in  Church 


192  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

and  State.  The  glory  of  the  system  of  chivalry  was 
passing;  such  a  court  as  that  of  Edward  the  Third 
preserved  a  brave  show,  but  its  pageantry  merely 
cloaked  decay.  The  high  ideals  of  the  earlier  concep- 
tion of  knighthood  were  observed  rather  in  the  letter 
than  in  the  spirit.  More  than  ever  the  upper  classes 
were  living  for  selfish  and  material  ends ;  if  they  were 
forced  to  recognize  the  power  of  the  common  people  as 
never  before,  they  were  none  the  less  eager  to  press  their 
own  advantages  to  the  utmost  limits.  Abuses  of 
government,  cruel  and  unjust  taxation,  which  now 
and  again  met  sturdy  opposition,  as  in  Wat  Tyler's 
rebellion,  were  characteristic  of  the  ruling  powers  of 
England.  Not  less  selfish  and  corrupt  than  those  were 
the  clergy.  The  members  of  the  great  religious  orders, 
which  had  done  so  much  good  on  English  soil,  which  had 
performed  so  many  works  of  charity  and  devotion, 
were  then  too  often  grossly  unfaithful  to  their  vows  of 
poverty,  chastity,  and  obedience,  and  all  the  more 
blameworthy  because  they  still  maintained  a  pretence 
of  allegiance  to  these  vows.  A  multitude  of  unprin- 
cipled men  went  into  the  Church  as  an  easy  means  of 
preying  on  the  poor  and  simple.  They  accumulated 
vast  wealth,  while  the  commons  starved  and  paid  taxes. 
These  abuses,  which  had  been  steadily  growing  for  a 
hundred  years  and  more,  were  met  at  the  end  of  the 
fourteenth  century  by  a  series  of  unusually  vigorous 
protests,  which  were  mirrored  in  various  forms  in  con- 
temporary literature.  In  the  great  poems  attributed 
to  a  certain  Langland,  poems  full  of  the  most  passionate 
indignation  against  social  injustice,  a  mere  plowman, 
the  meanest  in  the  social  scale,  is  exalted  above  all 


THE  BALLADS  OF  ROBIN  HOOD  193 

others.  Passionate  and  indignant,  too,  were  the  utter- 
ances of  even  so  gentle  a  man  as  the  poet  Gower. 
Practical  religious  work  and  a  seeking  of  the  higher  life, 
rather  than  a  struggle  with  the  existing  order  of  things, 
marked  the  activity  of  Wicklif  and  his  devoted  follow- 
ers. Chaucer  was  less  filled  with  impulse  to  regenerate 
the  social  order  than  to  ridicule  it ;  he  indulged  little 
in  passionate  invective,  but  much  in  biting  satire  of 
the  hypocritical  pretensions  of  the  ecclesiastical  orders. 
Contrasted  with  all  these  is  the  spirit  which  created 
Robin  Hood,  neither  angry  nor  satirical,  but  good- 
humored,  gay,  companionable,  —  tolerating,  however,_ 
no  miscarriages  of  justice.  The  essential  virtues  of 
the  English  commons,  sturdy  courage,  robust  morality, 
and  enthusiasm  for  fair  play,  are  here  crystallized 
into  a  figure  which  contrasts  sharply  with  the  corrup- 
tion of  the  nobles  and  ecclesiastics.  Robin  Hood  was 
not  regarded  as  a  robber,  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
term,  he  was  a  man  who  adjusted  the  inequalities  of 
wealth ;  he  did  not  steal  for  personal  aggrandizement, 
but  to  assist  the  poor,  and  to  punish  those  who  amassed 
wealth  illegally.  Moreover,  Robin  is  no  uncouth  coun- 
try fellow;  the  common  people  had  progressed  far 
enough  to  desire  him  to  have  the  virtues  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, —  elegant  manners,  for  example.  In  the  calm 
strength  and  wisdom  with  which  he  acts,  and  the  cour- 
tesy with  which  he  accomplishes  his  ends,  he  rather 
transcends  what  was  possible  for  a  yeoman  of  the  four- 
teenth century. 

It  is  most  interesting  to  contrast  this  product  of  the 
English  folk  with  Reynard  tthe  Fox,  a  distinctively 
French  creation.  Reynard  is  a  gay  fellow,  but  malicious 


194  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

and  evil-minded.  If  he  is  merry,  he  snickers  and  leers. 
There  is  many  a  broad  horse-laugh  in  Robin's  company, 
but  it  is  all  honest  mirth,  with  no  sly  deviltry  about  it. 
Robin  is  devoted  to  religion ;  he  is  faithful  to  his  king ; 
he  is  tender  to  women.  To  Reynard  all  these  things 
are  a  mockery.  He  sneers  at  religious  observances, 
parodying  the  offices  of  the  Church  with  garbled  eccle- 
siastical phrases ;  he  pays  no  heed  to  the  majesty  of  the 
throne;  he  is  callously  cynical  about  the  virtue  of 
women.  Most  of  all,  however,  he  has  no  sense  of  fair 
play ;  he  is  merely  bent  on  doing  as  much  mischief  in  the 
world  as  he  possibly  can.  His  grand  mission  in  life  is 
to  turn  everything  topsy-turvy,  and  then  exult  over  the 
confusion  he  has  wrought.  The  keynote  of  Robin's 
efforts,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  preservation  of  justice. 
By  might  he  makes  right,  in  an  age  in  which  impious 
men  bear  sway.  He  is  bent  on  helping  the  world  to  be 
better  and  happier,  not  to  make  everybody  as  uncom- 
fortable as  possible.  Reynard  is  an  anarchist,  of  the 
kind  that  tears  down  and  thinks  little  of  how  to  rebuild. 
Robin  is  a  socialist,  but  his  program  is  as  much  con- 
structive as  destructive ;  he  is  quite  as  much  bent  on 
helping  the  poor  as  in  making  things  hot  for  rascals. 
With  his  bluff  and  kindly  nature,  his  love  of  the  truth 
and  hatred  of  sham  and  oppression,  he  incarnates  much 
that  is  best  in  English  character,  —  not  wholly  the 
spirit  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  element,  although  this  may  be 
held  to  predominate,  but  the  spirit  of  the  different 
races  which  had  combined  to  form  the  English  people. 


VIII 
THE   CANTERBURY   TALES 


0  Socrates  plains  de  philosophic, 

Seneque  en  meurs  et  Anglux  en  pratique, 

Ovides  grans  en  ta  poeterie, 

Bries  en  parler,  saiges  en  rethorique, 

Aigles  treshaulz,  qui  par  ta  theorique 

Enluminez  le  regne  d'Eneas, 

L'Isle  aux  Geans,  ceuls  de  Bruth,  et  qui  as 

Sem6  les  fleurs  et  plante  le  rosier 

Aux  ignorans  de  la  langue  pandras. 

Grant  translateur,  noble  Geoffroy  Chaucier. 

—  EUSTACHE  DESCHAMPS. 


VIII 
THE   CANTERBURY  TALES 

IN  the  cartoons  and  caricatures  which  set  forth 
current  political  events  in  our  illustrated  journals,  we 
always  recognize  the  United  States  in  the  familiar  figure 
of  Uncle  Sam,  a  tall,  raw-boned  Yankee,  with  old- 
fashioned  trousers  and  cowhide  boots,  and  a  swallowtail 
coat  made  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes.  We  look  upon 
him,  of  course,  only  as  a  symbol;,  we  know  that  if  the 
distinctive  characteristics  of  the  American  people  were 
ever  represented  by  such  a  personage  as  this,  they  can 
no  longer  be  so  represented  at  the  present  day.  Uncle 
Sam  is  no  more  like  the  average  American  than  the 
pot-bellied  choleric  John  Bull  of  the  cartoonists  is  like 
the  average  Englishman.  And  when  we  consider  the 
matter  further,  we  realize  how  impossible  it  is  to  repre- 
sent the  typical  American  by  any  one  figure.  Our 
country  is  too  complex  for  such  simplification,  —  a 
thousand  types  cannot  well  be  rolled  into  one.  Even 
if  the  field  be  narrowed  to  New  York  City  alone,  the 
problem  becomes  no  easier.  There  is  perhaps  as 
much  racial  and  temperamental  diversity  in  this  one 
municipality  as  in  all  the  rest  of  the  United  States 
together.  The  elements  which  compose  such  a  com- 
munity are  too  manifold  and  too  varied  ever  to  be 
reduced  to  a  single  adequate  and  comprehensive  symbol, 

197 


198  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

even  though  the  cartoonist  has  created  a  Father 
Knickerbocker,  emblematic  of  early  New  Amsterdam 
rather  than  of  later  New  York. 

If  this  is  true  of  America  at  the  present  day,  it  was 
also  true  of  England  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  if 
it  is  true  of  modern  New  York,  it  was  almost  as  true  of 
medieval  London.  In  the  days  of  Chaucer,  the  various 
professions  and  trades  were  sharply  differentiated,  and 
distinctions  of  rank  and  station  were  strongly  marked. 
The  complex  society  of  that  age  formed  a  striking  con- 
trast to  the  society  which  produced  'Beowulf/  or  the 
'Song  of  Roland.'  The  Anglo-Saxon  community  had 
been  much  simpler;  there  had  been  fewer  differences  of 
rank  and  of  occupation,  men  had  thought  and  felt  more 
as  a  group  and  less  as  a  collection  of  individuals.  The 
same  statement  applies,  with  some  modifications,  to  the 
French  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest.  The  'Song  of 
Roland7  is  the  epic  of  a  folk  still  mainly  homogeneous. 
But  as  we  approach  modern  times,  the  social  order 
grows  steadily  more  complicated,  and  in  the  Arthurian 
romances,  in  the  story  of  Reynard  the  Fox,  and  in  the 
ballads  of  Robin  Hood,  we  have  to  deal  not  with  the 
literature  of  the  nation  as  a  whole,  but  with  that  of 
separate  groups  and  classes.  Now,  at  the  close  of  our 
survey  of  the  social  tendencies  of  the  English  people  in 
early  times,  we  may  well  endeavor  to  gain  a  bird's-eye 
view  of  all  these  contrasting  types,  to  look  at  them  not 
by  themselves,  but  as  parts  of  a  great  whole. 

There  can  be  no  better  way  to  gain  this  bird's-eye 
view  than  to  make  the  pilgrimage  to  Canterbury  with 
the  nine  and  twenty  English  men  and  women  to  whom 
Chaucer  has  introduced  us  in  his  'Canterbury  Tales.' 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  199 

Here  almost  every  walk  of  life  is  represented,  but  a 
certain  unity  is  given  to  the  expedition,  not  only  because 
these  travelers  are  all  English,  but  because  they  are 
animated  by  the  same  purpose,  —  they  are  all  on  their 
way  to  the  same  shrine.  In  the  fourteenth  century 
the  trip  from  London  to  Canterbury  consumed  three 
or  four  days,  but  this  delay  may  not  have  been  with- 
out its  compensations.  It  must  have  been  delightful 
to  ride  in  the  springtime  on  horseback  through  the  leafy 
English  lanes,  and  along  the  highroad  with  the  green 
fields  on  either  hand.  It  was  safer  as  well  as  pleasanter 
to  travel  with  others,  since  thieves  were  plentiful  and 
the  roads  none  too  well  guarded.  Chaucer,  who  rides 
in  the  company  himself,  could  tell  you,  if  he  chose,  of 
the  dangers  of  traveling  alone  with  money  in  your 
purse,  for  he  has  more  than  once  been  robbed  of  con- 
siderable sums,  while  in  the  king's  service.  And  no 
member  of  the  company  takes  more  pleasure  in  the 
good-fellowship  of  the  expedition  than  thisjshy;  man, 
who  has  revealed  to  us  the  characteristics  of  his  coun- 
trymen with  such  unfailing  humor  and  genial  sympathy. 
The  avowed  object  of  our  expedition  is  to  offer 
prayers  at  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  the 
great  English  martyr,  whose  tomb  has  now  become  a 
spot  of  especial  sanctity.  Many  of  the  party  are  doubt- 
less fulfilling  some  vow  made  in  the  course  of  the  past 
year ;  it  is  a  common  practice  to  promise  the  saint  the 
honor  of  a  pilgrimage  to  his  shrine  in  return  for  his  pro- 
tection. Others  are  ecclesiastics,  whose  profession 
makes  an  occasional  journey  such  as  this  a  matter  of 
duty.  The  purpose  of  each  man  and  woman  is,  no 
doubt,  avowedly  religious.  But,  after  all,  the  real 


200  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

reason  why  most  of  them  are  undertaking  this  pilgrim- 
age to  Canterbury  is  quite  different,  —  they  want  a 
little  spring  holiday.  They  are  seeking  amusement 
and  relaxation,  they  look  forward  with  keen  anticipa- 
tion to  the  pleasure  of  riding  through  the  sweet  country, 
all  fresh  with  green  leaves  and  bright  flowers  after  the 
April  rains;  they  like  to  gossip  and  chat  with  their 
fellow-travelers,  and  they  will  find  much  to  interest 
them  later  on  in  the  bustling  little  town  of  Canterbury. 
Any  place  which  shelters  the  shrine  of  a  popular  saint 
is  sure  to  be  thriving.  This  pilgrimage  is,  in  short,  a 
summer  vacation  for  all  these  people,  and  it  is  all 'the 
more  satisfying,  since  they  can  do  something  to  save 
their  souls  and  enjoy  themselves  at  the  same  time,  — 
not  always  a  possible  combination !  One  of  the  com- 
pany, a  stout  and  rather  masculine  widow  from  the  town 
of  Bath,  who  has  made  a  snug  fortune  in  cloth-weaving, 
is  exceedingly  fond  of  travel,  and  has  been  all  over 
Europe  on  pilgrimages  of  this  sort.  She  has  visited 
many  foreign  shrines,  that  of  St.  James  of  Campostella 
in  Spain,  and  that  of  the  Virgin  in  Boulogne  just  across 
the  Channel.  She  has  been  to  Cologne,  where  lie  the 
bones  of  the  three  Wise  Men  of  the  East,  and  she  has  even 
ventured  as  far  as  Rome.  When  made  by  land,  these 
have  not  been  difficult  journeys;  the  roads,  smoothed 
by  the  passing  of  thousands  of  pilgrims,  are  suitably 
provided  with  inns,  where  travelers  are  refreshed  and 
sheltered;  there  are  guide-books  telling  the  proper  way 
to  take,  —  in  short,  everything  possible  is  done  for  the 
convenience  and  comfort  of  wayfarers.  Whether  one 
prefers  a  Continental  tour,  or  merely  a  little  excursion 
in  the  English  country,  the  pilgrim  routes  will  offer, 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  201 

in  this  reign  of  King  Richard  the  Second,  the  safest  and 
pleasantest  opportunity  to  see  a  little  of  the  world. 

At  a  comfortable  inn,  the  Tabard  in  Southwark,  our 
travelers  have  just  been  resting  before  beginning  the 
actual  journey  to  Canterbury.  Their  accommodations 
at  this  hostelry  are  satisfactory;  the  rooms  are  large, 
the  stables  are  capacious,  and  the  host  is  personalty 
attentive  to  their  wants.  He  is  a  merry  and  good- 
natured  man,  fond  of  his  joke,  but  nevertheless  with  an 
eye  to  the  main  chance.  The  hotel  business  has  been 
good,  and  he  feels  that  he  can  afford  to  take  a  little 
vacation,  and  ride  down  to  Canterbury  himself,  but 
he  reflects  that  it  would  be  a  good  stroke  of  policy  to 
gather  all  this  party  into  his  house  on  the  way  back. 
So  at  supper-time,  when  all  are  feeling  in  good  humor, 
he  proposes  that  for  diversion  by  the  wayside  each  shall 
entertain  the  rest  of  the  company  by  story-telling,  and 
that  the  man  who  tells  the  best  tale  of  all  shall  be  given 
a  dinner  at  the  expense  of  the  others  when  they  return 
to  London.  And  the  host  is  very  particular  to  have 
it  clearly  understood  that  this  dinner  must  be  in  his 
own  hotel,  "here  in  this  place,  sitting  by  this  post/' 
as  he  says.  He  himself  offers  to  act  as  guide  on  the  way, 
and  to  serve  as  judge  and  presiding  officer  when  the 
story-telling  goes  on.  To  this  plan  the  travelers  gladly 
assent,  the  wine  is  once  more  brought  in,  and  every- 
body goes  to  bed.  In  the  morning,  the  host  bustles 
about  like  a  cock  among  a  flock  of  hens,  routing  out 
those  who  are  sleeping  late  after  the  potations  of  the 
evening  before,  and,  in  his  capacity  as  manager  of  the 
expedition,  seeing  to  it  that  an  early  start  is  made  for 
Canterbury.  As  soon  as  all  have  gone  a  little  distance 


202  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

on  the  way,  he  calls  for  the  first  tale,  and  the  game  is 
fairly  begun. 

We  are  fortunate  in  having,  in  this  company,  repre- 
sentatives of  nearly  all  ranks  of  English  society.  There 
are  persons  of  nobility,  a  knight  and  his  son,  an  esquire, 
who  are  given  a  certain  precedence  over  the  rest.  The 
knight  is  a  distinguished  man,  who  has  seen  much  ser- 
vice in  Continental  wars,  and  who  shows  his  breeding 
in  his  modesty  and  in  his  consideration  for  those  about 
him.  His  son,  dressed  in  the  height  of  fashion,  fancies 
himself  so  deep  in  love  that  he  can  hardly  get  any  sleep 
at  night,  and  spends  his  days  in  singing  sentimental 
songs.  We  have  seen  lovers  of  this  type  before,  in  the 
romances.  There  is  also  a  prioress,  a  lady  of  gentle 
blood  who  has  taken  religious  vows.  She  shows  her 
superior  social  position  in  her  elegant  table  manners, 
—  she  is  careful  not  to  wet  her  fingers  in  the  gravy, 
and  when  she  drinks  out  of  the  cup  as  it  goes  around 
the  table,  she  leaves  it  clean  for  the  next  person  who 
uses  it.  Other  pilgrims  represent  the  well-to-do  upper 
middle  class,  and  some  of  them  even  make  pretensions 
to  superior  gentility.  Our  friend  the  widow  of  Bath, 
who  has  buried  five  husbands,  and  gone  all  over  Europe 
seeking  consolation,  is  a  person  of  some  wealth  and 
consequence,  and  is  disposed  to  insist  that  others  shall 
recognize  this.  If  any  one  ventures  to  precede  her  in 
church  on  a  Sunday,  when  she  is  awfully  arrayed  in  a 
voluminous  headdress,  she  loses  her  temper  completely, 
and  that  is  no  small  matter.  There  is  also  a  country 
gentleman  or  franklin,  who  has  held  various  public 
offices,  and  aspires  to  be  thought  aristocratic.  While  at 
home  he  always  keeps  open  house  in  magnificent  style, 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  203 

and  his  manners  on  this  journey  savor  of  the  pride  that 
apes  humility. 

There  are  many  ecclesiastics  in  the  party,  from  the 
fat  and  overfed  monk,  who  spends  most  of  his  time  in 
hunting,  and  who  gives  more  thought  to  dress  than  to 
religion,  down  to  the  poor  parish  priest,  who  labors  in 
a  straggling  country  district,  where  he  must  walk  on 
foot  from  house  to  house  on  his  errands  of  mercy  and 
cheer.  This  rural  parson  is  almost  the  only  man  of  the 
group  of  churchmen  who  is  not  a  rascal.  They  are  not, 
as  a  whole,  a  pleasant  set  of  people.  There  is  a  waggish 
fellow  who  makes  a  living  by  traveling  about  through 
the  country  districts  selling  bogus  relics,  —  pigs7  bones, 
which  he  tries  to  pass  off  as  those  of  the  saints,  and  an 
old  pillow-case  which  he  avers  is  a  part  of  the  veil  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin.  He  also  peddles  indulgences,  which 
give  the  buyer  the  right  to  sin  without  offending  the 
Church.  There  is  a  begging  friar,  too,  who  is  little 
better  than  an  impostor,  wheedling  the  rich  and  squeez- 
ing the  poor.  But  he  has  the  saving  grace  of  being 
able  to  play  on  the  harp  and  fiddle,  and  after  he  has 
finished  his  songs,  his  eyes  twinkle  in  his  head  like  the 
stars  on  a  frosty  night !  He  is  not  so  bad  a  companion, 
though  scarcely  to  be  respected.  Far  less  agreeable  is 
the  summoner,  a  ribald  fellow  of  unclean  life,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  act  as  a  police  officer  for  the  Bishop's 
court,  and  bring  up  to  justice  those  who  are  guilty  of 
spiritual  offenses.  He  is  feared  and  hated,  because 
he  uses  his  power  to  extort  money  unlawfully.  We 
must  not  forget  the  priests  in  attendance  upon  the  lady 
prioress,  who  is  a  person  of  such  consequence  that  she 
must  go  well  escorted.  They  are  not  particularly 


204  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

described,  so  we  may  give  them  the  benefit  of  the  doubt, 
and  set  them  down  as  honest  men.  We  can  hardly 
think  ill  of  the  priest  who  tells  the  pretty  story  of  the 
cock  and  the  fox,  at  all  events.  But  most  of  the  pil- 
grims who  represent  the  Church  do  not  inspire  confi- 
dence. 

There  are  respectable  solid  tradesmen,  members  of 
the  great  English  guilds,  or  trades-unions,  and  there  is 
a  yeoman,  who  looks  as  though  he  might  have  come 
straight  from  the  merry  band  of  Robin  Hood  in  Sher- 
wood forest,  with  his  coat  and  hood  of  green,  and  his 
bow  and  peacock-feathered  arrows.  There  is  a  doctor 
and  a  lawyer  and  a  student  at  Oxford  University,  — 
we  cannot  stay  to  describe  them  all.  Chaucer  is  par- 
ticularly amused  at  the  shrewdness  of  the  steward  or 
manciple,  who  purchases  provisions  for  the  Inns  of 
Court,  —  a  rascal  who  can  deceive  the  keenest  lawyers, 
and  well  line  his  pockets  with  money  stolen  from  his 
patrons.  "  Doesn't  it  show  the  grace  of  God,"  Chaucer 
slyly  asks,  "that  the  wit  of  such  an  ignorant  fellow 
should  surpass  the  wisdom  of  a  heap  of  learned  men?" 

Finally,  we  must  observe  certain  members  of  the  com- 
pany at  whom  the  dainty  prioress  and  the  purse-proud 
gentleman  farmer  look  a  little  askance,  —  uncouth 
fellows  from  the  lower  walks  of  life,  who  betray  their 
grossness  in  their  ribald  speech.  There  is  a  cook 
named  Roger  who  is  drunk  most  of  the  time,  so  that 
he  even  falls  from  his  horse  and  has  to  be  helped  out 
of  the  mire.  Yet  he  is  a  man  who  can  bake  a  pie  in 
a  masterly  fashion,  although  the  host  insinuates  that 
he  sometimes  uses  flies  when  parsley  is  not  at  hand. 
There  is  a  sailor,  too,  who  rides  his  horse  as  awkwardly 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  205 

as  the  drunken  cook,  a  man  who  has  seen  rough  service, 
and  made  his  enemies  walk  the  plank  on  the  high  seas. 
Another  stout  fellow  is  a  miller,  not  over  honest  in  his 
trade,  and  full  of  loud  talk  and  coarse  jests.  The 
pilgrims  ride  out  of  town  to  the  skirling  of  his  bagpipes, 
while  the  pardoner  and  the  summoner  join  from  time 
to  time  in  a  duet  —  "Come  hither,  love,  to  me!" 
and  the  friar  and  the  young  esquire  contribute  their 
share,  vocally  and  instrumentally,  to  the  entertainment 
of  their  fellows  and  to  the  easement  of  their  own  hearts. 
Truly,  there  is  music  and  to  spare  on  this  jolly  pilgrim- 
age, and  some  of  the  greatest  rascals  have  the  merriest 
notes. 

The  host  does  his  part  in  admirable  fashion,  keeping 
order,  quieting  the  disagreements  which  occasionally 
arise,  bringing  forward  the  shyer  spirits  and  repressing 
the  more  forward  ones  when  he  can.  Some  of  the  ruder 
knaves  are  so  anxious  to  have  their  say  that  they  actu- 
ally obtain  precedence  over  the  gentlefolk.  We  can- 
not be  absolutely  sure  of  the  sequence  of  the  tales,  but 
we  can  see  clearly  enough  that  it  is  not  determined  by 
the  rank  of  the  tellers.  The  young  esquire,  for  example, 
has  to  wait  until  after  the  miller  and  the  cook  and  the 
sailor  and  others  of  their  class  have  finished.  The  host 
is  shrewd  enough  to  see  to  it  in  the  very  beginning  that 
the  knight,  the  most  distinguished  man  in  the  whole 
company,  shall  tell  the  first  tale.  Although  the  host 
pretends  to  arrange  the  matter  by  drawing  lots,  we 
know  well  enough  that  he  manages  so  that  the  game 
shall  be  properly  begun.  After  this  he  allows  the  others 
to  follow  almost  at  random.  He  tells  no  story  himself, 
but  he  expresses  his  opinions  freely  from  time  to  time. 


206  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

He  does  not  interfere  with  the  most  ribald  of  jests ; 
he  likes  a  good  racy  tale  himself,  and  he  knows  that 
even  the  more  refined  members  of  the  company  will 
relish  coarse  talk  too.  The  elegant  young  esquire  is, 
upon  occasion,  as  gross  as  any  one.  It  is  an  era  of 
license  in  speech  and  jest.  At  the  same  time,  the  host 
is  equally  generous  to  dullness.  Men  of  the  Middle 
Ages  seem  to  have  felt  that  the  most  unbearably  tedious 
moralizing  is  a  good  thing  for  the  soul,  as  bitter  herbs 
are  best  for  the  digestion.  Only  once  is  the  host  obliged 
to  interrupt  a  speaker  in  the  midst  of  his  tale ;  when 
Chaucer  is  mouthing  an  absurd  parody  on  the  grandilo- 
quent romances  of  the  day,  the  heroics  of  chivalry  re- 
duced to  farce,  and  makes  his  adventurous  knight  drink 
nothing  but  water,  —  then  the  host's  patience  is  ex- 
hausted. Where  would  be  the  profits  of  the  good  ale 
of  the  Tabard  Inn  if  every  one  were  to  become  a  teeto- 
taler? It  is  monstrous  to  think  of,  not  a  matter  to 
be  touched  upon  even  in  jest. 

This  pilgrimage  is  a  kind  of  open  forum,  in  which 
every  one  speaks  his  mind,  and  gives  his  views  on  a 
variety  of  subjects  under  color  of  story-telling.  These 
people  debate  as  well  as  narrate,  as  various  questions 
arise  —  social,  moral,  religious,  and  literary  —  which 
claim  their  interest.  And  these  debates  are  carried  on 
most  informally;  every  one  has  a  right  to  be  heard, 
the  commons  as  well  as  the  gentlefolk.  A  thoroughly 
democratic  spirit  prevails.  This  is  one  of  the  most 
striking  things  about  the  '  Canterbury  Tales/  that  here, 
for  the  first  time  in  English  literature,  all  classes  meet  in 
mutual  sympathy  and  fellowship  on  a  common  footing 
as  human  beings.  Does  not  this  mark  the  beginning 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  207 

of  a  better  social  consciousness  than  has  hitherto  existed, 
does  it  not  indicate  in  some  degree  a  breaking  of  the 
barriers  of  caste?  Launcelot  would  not  have  conde- 
scended to  travel  with  a  plowman  or  a  cook,  —  when 
he  once  had  to  ride  in  a  cart  he  felt  it  a  gross  indignity, 
quite  beneath  what  was  proper  for  one  of  his  rank. 
It  seems  doubtful  whether  Gawain,  with  all  his  vaunted 
courtesy,  would  have  liked  the  free  and  easy  humors 
of  the  Canterbury  pilgrimage  much  better.  In  this 
company,  however,  the  persons  of  superior  social  sta- 
tion are  not  haughty.  The  knight  is  as  modest  as  a 
maiden;  never  in  his  life  has  he  been  discourteous  to 
any  one.  The  squire  does  not  hesitate  to  bandy  a  coarse 
jest  about  the  table,  and  the  much-traveled  widow, 
the  wife  of  Bath,  although  she  may  put  on  some  airs 
in  church,  is  the  best  of  company,  laughing  and  talking 
in  a  spirit  of  complete  good-fellowship.  When  the 
gentleman  farmer,  who  is  really  the  only  snob  in  the 
party,  regrets  that  his  son  had  rather  talk  with  a  ser- 
vant than  with  a  person  of  higher  rank,  the  host  rudely 
retorts,  "A  straw  for  thy  'gentility' !"  The  host  is, 
indeed,  an  embodiment  of  the  common  sympathy  which 
exists  between  the  different  members  of  the  company. 
His  utterances  as  presiding  officer  are  truly  representa- 
tive of  the  body  which  he  governs,  so  that  when  he  is 
respectful  to  the  poor  parson,  but  waggish  with  the 
more  important  churchmen,  he  is  merely  voicing  the 
sentiments  of  the  party  as  a  whole. 

Despite  this  democratic  spirit,  no  effort  is  made  by 
the  various  pilgrims  to  adapt  their  tales  to  the  taste  of 
the  company  as  a  whole.  On  the  contrary,  each  offers 
a  story  of  the  kind  which  he  has  been  accustomed  to 


208  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

hear,  addressing  himself  to  those  of  the  party  who  care 
for  the  same  sort  of  entertainment  as  he  does  himself. 
The  coarser  natures  do  not  derive  much  satisfaction 
from  the  delicate  narratives  of  their  betters,  and  no 
effort  is  made  to  add  salt  to  those  narratives  for  their 
benefit.  On  the  other  hand,  the  good  parson  and  the 
lady  prioress  can  hardly  have  approved  of  the  lewd 
yarns  of  the  miller  or  the  sailor;  but  these  worthies 
bate  no  jot  of  their  rough  fun  to  save  the  feelings  of 
more  squeamish  souls.  There  is  rarely  any  hint  of 
insincerity  among  the  pilgrims;  they  are  frank  and  un- 
abashed at  all  times.  What  they  have  to  say  is  thor- 
oughly characteristic  of  their  breeding  and  their  tastes. 
Thus  their  tales  afford  a  comprehensive  view  of  the 
principal  types  of  medieval  narrative,  as  developed  by 
the  different  classes  of  society ;  they  illustrate  vividly 
the  aristocratic  and  democratic  tendencies  in  the  life 
of  the  times. 

We  have  already  traced  these  contrasting  tendencies 
in  the  romances  of  King  Arthur  and  his  knights,  and  in 
the  verse  dealing  with  Reynard  the  Fox  and  with  Robin 
Hood.  We  have  noted  that  the  aristocracy  loved  un- 
real, fantastic  narratives,  exalting  the  courage  and 
courtesy  of  some  romantic  hero,  and  his  undying  love 
for  a  fair  lady.  Such  stories  we  have  here,  told,  as  one 
might  expect,  by  the  knight  and  his  son,  and  by  the  wife 
of  Bath  and  the  country  gentleman.  Very  typical  is 
the  tale  of  the  wife  of  Bath,  full  of  the  absurdities  of 
romance,  and  yet  touched  with  its  evanescent  charm 
and  illumined  by  its  Quixotic  ideality.  After  a  long 
and  most  entertaining  account  of  the  management  of 
her  five  husbands,  the  good  lady  finally  comes  to  her 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  209 

story.  The  hero  is  a  knight  of  King  Arthur's  court, 
who. has  been  condemned  to  death  for  a  grievous  fault. 
At  the  last  moment  Queen  Guinevere  takes  pity  on  him, 
and  begs  the  king  to  spare  his  life.  Her  prayer  is 
granted,  but  the  queen  tells  the  unhappy  knight  that 
there  is  one  more  condition  which  he  must  fulfil  before 
he  can  be  a  free  man ;  he  must  be  able  to  give  the  right 
answer  to  this  question:  "What  do  women  most 
desire?"  This  task  seems  to  the  knight  indeed  diffi- 
cult, but  he  goes  forth,  resolved  to  discover  the  true 
answer  if  he  can.  So  he  asks  every  one  whom  he  meets. 
Some  people  tell  him  that  women  love  riches,  others  say 
that  they  desire  honor  most  of  all,  others  pleasure, 
others  dress,  others  flattery,  but  none  of  these  solutions 
seems  quite  satisfactory.  One  day,  as  the  knight  is  out 
in  the  forest,  he  comes  upon  a  hideously  ugly  old  woman, 
to  whom  he  tells  his  trouble.  She  promises  to  give 
him  the  right  answer,  if  he  will  grant  her  one  favor  in 
return.  This  the  knight  readily  promises,  and  she  tells 
him  the  secret.  Then  they  go  up  to  the  court  together, 
and  there,  before  the  whole  multitude  surrounding  the 
king  and  queen,  the  knight  delivers  the  answer,  — 
the  dearest  thing  to  the  heart  of  a  woman  is  power, 
domination.  "My  liege  lady,"  he  says,  addressing  the 
queen,  "women  in  general  desire  to  have  sovereignty 
over  their  husbands  and  their  lovers,  and  to  have  their 
own  way  about  everything."  All  agree  that  this  is 
the  right  answer,  and  the  knight  is  pardoned.  Sud- 
denly, up  starts  the  hideous  old  woman,  and  demands 
her  reward.  This  is  —  that  the  knight  shall  marry  her  ! 
But  now  observe  the  reward  of  courtesy.  The  knight 
is  so  perfect  a  gentleman  that  he  not  only  makes  her  his 


210  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

wife,  but  allows  her  what  she  has  said  women  most 
desire,  —  to  have  her  own  way  in  everything.  As  soon 
as  she  has  obtained  his  consent  to  this  arrangement,  she 
is  suddenly  transformed  into  a  beautiful  young  woman. 
She  has  been  bewitched,  doomed  to  ugliness  until  she 
can  find  a  man  willing  to  marry  her,  and  subject  himself 
completely  to  her  will. 

This  fantastic  story,  probably  ultimately  derived  from 
the  treasure-house  of  Celtic  narrative,  is  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  conventions  of  chivalry,  according  to 
which  a  knight  must  obey  the  will  of  his  lady,  and  must 
be  courteous  and  self-sacrificing  in  all  things,  no  matter 
how  great  a  strain  may  be  put  upon  his  patience.  Origi- 
nally a  widespread  folk-tale,  it  was  so  well  suited  to  the 
taste  of  the  upper  classes  that  it  was  made  peculiarly 
their  own. .  It  was  frequently  told  of  Sir  Gawain,  the 
model  of  medieval  courtesy.  Here  it  is  narrated  quite 
seriously  until  the  end,  when  the  wife  of  Bath  exag- 
gerates the  moral  so  that  the  story  becomes  truly  ab- 
surd. "And  so/'  she  says,  "the  knight  and  his  lady 
live  until  the  end  of  their  lives  in  perfect  joy.  And 
may  Christ  send  us  young  and  meek  husbands,  and 
grant  that  we  may  outlive  them  !  And  I  also  pray  the 
Lord  that  He  will  shorten  the  lives  of  all  those  who 
will  not  be  governed  by  their  wives  !  And  old  and  an- 
gry niggards,  who  won't  spend  their  money,  —  may 
God  send  to  them  a  very  pestilence!"  All  this  is 
good-humored  fun,  yet  there  is  a  meaning  beneath  it. 
When  the  wife  of  Bath  tells  this  courtly  tale,  with  its 
setting  in  the  domains  of  King  Arthur,  as  an  illustration 
of  her  advanced  views  about  the  way  to  treat  husbands, 
and  when  she  makes  the  chivalrous  deference  of  a  gentle- 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  211 

man  to  the  will  of  his  lady  mean  complete  extinction 
of  his  personality,  she  deals  a  heavy  blow  to  the  con- 
ventions of  aristocratic  literature.  If  the  tale  were  not 
in  itself  absurd,  from  the  point  of  view  of  common- 
sense,  it  would  not  form  so  delicious  a  defense  of  her 
humorous  thesis.  Beneath  the  mask  of  the  wife  of 
Bath  Chaucer  is  here  having  a  little  fling  at  the  weak- 
nesses of  the  system  of  chivalry,  just  as  in  the  'Rime 
of  Sir  Topaz '  he  parodies  the  ludicrous  bombast  of  the 
metrical  romances,  or  as  he  occasionally  puts  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek  while  the  knight  is  telling  his  elaborately 
artificial  tale.  The  aristocratic  conventions  which  we 
have  seen  in  all  their  glory  in  the  Arthurian  romances 
were  already  on  the  decline  in  Chaucer's  day.  They 
had  done  their  service,  in  helping  to  refine  the  taste  of 
a  brutal  age.  But  now  this  service  was  no  longer  so 
much  appreciated ;  their  absurdity  was  sometimes  more 
apparent  than  their  idealism. 

The  tales  of  the  common  folk  contain  many  a  caustic 
comment  on  the  aristocratic  manners  of  the  day.  We 
have  already  seen  two  separate  tendencies  in  the  litera- 
ture of  the  middle  classes,  —  the  one  satirical,  mocking 
with  bitter  laughter  at  Church  and  State  through  the 
mouth  of  Reynard  the  Fox;  the  other  a  more  digni- 
fied and  good-humored  protest  uttered  by  Robin  Hood. 
In  the  ' Canterbury  Tales'  the  bitter  and  cynical  tone 
is  very  noticeable  in  the  criticism  of  life  which  comes 
from  the  commons.  These  folk  have  sharp  tongues; 
they  love  to  ridicule  the  errors  of  churchmen  and  the 
frailties  of  women.  Chivalry  had  insisted  on  blind 
devotion  to  the  gentler  sex  and  to  the  majesty  of  re- 
ligion ;  these  people  answer,  with  a  sneer,  that  neither 


212  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

women  nor  clerics  are  any  better  than  they  should  be. 
Most  of  their  stories  will  not  bear  repeating.  The 
closest  modern  analogues  of  these  fabliaux,  told  among 
men  in  the  ale-house  and  tavern,  are  our  smoking-room 
stories,  indefensibly  coarse,  even  though  indisputably 
humorous.  The  grossness  of  Chaucer's  tales  is  well- 
known,  but  they  have  some  redeeming  qualities.  They 
differ  from  their  descendants  of  the  smoking-room  in 
that  they  are  really  artistic  in  their  narrative  method, 
the  precursors  of  the  modern  short-story,  and  that  they 
contain,  under  their  broad  jesting,  mordant  social  satire. 
The  knight  tells  a  tale  of  two  lovesick  young  warriors, 
Palamon  and  Arcite,  who  woo  a  pink  and  white  beauty 
named  Emily  with  all  the  elaborate  mannerisms  of 
romance.  Hardly  has  the  knight  finished,  when  the 
drunken  miller  steps  in  and  shows  what  the  common 
people  made  of  the  airs  and  graces  of  aristocracy.  His 
heroes  are  two  rascally  young  "  clerks  " ;  his  heroine 
a  carpenter's  wife  of  doubtful  virtue.  The  extravagant 
way  in  which  these  two  knaves  make  love  to  the  lady 
is  no  less  than  a  parody  of  the  sentimentality  of  the 
knight's  tale.  One  of  them  sings  love-songs  and  sighs 
under  her  window:  — 

The  mone,  whan  it  was  night,  ful  brighte  shoon, 
And  Absolon  his  giterne  hath  y-take, 
For  paramours,  he  thoughte  for  to  wake.1 
And  forth  he  gooth,  lolif  and  amorous, 
Til  he  cam  to  the  carpenteres  hous 
A  little  after  cokkes  hadde  y-crowe ; 
And  dressed  hym  up  by  a  shot-windowe 
That  was  upon  the  carpenteres  wal. 
He  singeth  in  his  vois  gentil  and  smal, 

1 "  For  love-longing,  he  had  no  thought  of  sleeping." 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  213 

"Now,  dere  lady,  if  thy  wille  be, 

I  preye  yow  that  ye  wol  rewe  on  me," 

Ful  wel  acordaunt  to  his  giterninge. 

This  is  the  final  outcome  of  the  absurdities  of  the  sys- 
tem of  chivalry  in  the  minds  of  the  sharp-witted  com- 
mon folk;  caricature  of  its  elaborate  manners,  and 
satire  of  its  immorality,  which  permitted  a  married 
woman  to  encourage  the  love  of  other  men  than  her 
husband. 

We  must  be  careful  not  to  take  all  that  is  said  in 
the  '  Canterbury  Tales '  about  the  faults  and  failings  of 
women  too  seriously.  It  represents  truly  neither 
Chaucer's  feelings  nor  those  of  his  age.  The  frailty 
of  women  formed  one  of  the  stock  subjects  for  medieval 
satire,  just  as  her  peerless  perfection  served  as  the 
corner-stone  of  the  system  of  chivalry.  Both  of  these 
artificial  literary  fashions  affect  the  spontaneity  of  the 
sentiments  of  the  pilgrims.  Again,  some  other  tales, 
like  that  of  the  lawyer,  are  not  intended  to  be  taken 
seriously  at  all ;  they  exaggerate  the  virtue  of  woman 
out  of  all  reason  for  a  moral  purpose.  The  young 
Oxford  student  tells  of  the  patient  Griselda,  who  was 
so  obedient  to  her  husband  that  she  was  willing  to  let 
him  kill  her  children  and  put  her  aside  for  another 
wife,  and  yet  make  no  complaint.  This  represents  the 
ideals  of  no  class  of  society ;  Chaucer  himself  says  that 
the  tale  is  not  told  because  wives  ought  to  imitate  the 
humility  of  Griselda,  for  that  would  be  unbearable, 
even  if  they  were  willing  to  try,  but  because  every  one 
ought  to  be  constant  in  adversity,  as  she  was.  We  may 
fancy  the  disgust  of  the  wife  of  Bath  at  this  story ! 
And  then,  by  way  of  antidote,  Chaucer-  tells  of  the 


214  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

lean  cow  which  fed  on  patient  wives,  and  the  fat  cow 
which  fed  on  patient  husbands,  showing,  just  as  in  the 
wife  of  Bath's  tale,  that  the  moral  must  be  taken  with 
a  grain  of  salt.  We  must  surely  disregard  such  evi- 
dence as  this  in  studying  Chaucer's  work  as  an  indi- 
cation of  social  ideals.  It  is  the  expression  of  individ- 
uals, it  smells  of  the  lamp,  it  is  little  connected  with 
that  literature  which  rises  spontaneously  from  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  any  great  class  of  society ;  or, 
if  it  was  once  the  property  of  the  people,  it  has  been 
so  altered  in  learned  hands  as  to  be  completely  changed 
in  spirit.  The  '  Canterbury  Tales/  it  will  be  observed, 
are  not  like  the  great  poetry  which  we  have  considered 
in  the  earlier  lectures,  —  they  are  a  collection  of  diverse 
material,  some  of  it  popular,  some  of  it  aristocratic, 
some  of  it  learned  and  "literary."  In  so  far  as  these 
stories  mark  the  emergence  of  the  individual,  or  the 
narrow  interests  of  the  moralist,  they  are  a  less  trust- 
worthy guide  to  social  progress. 

Yet  this  very  diversity  is  itself  significant.  We  have 
now,  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  reached  a 
time  when  story-telling  no  longer  reflects  the  ideals  of 
a  few  sharply  defined  social  orders,  but  when  it  is  com- 
plicated in  a  thousand  ways  by  the  more  elaborate 
structure  of  the  English  nation.  It  is  more  difficult 
to  see  English  life  clearly  because  it  is  no  longer  sim- 
ple. Its  confusion  appeared  so  great  to  the  author  of 
"  Piers  Plowman  "  —  if  we  may  speak  of  him  as  one  man 
—  that  he  represented  it  as  a  field  full  of  folk  of  the 
most  diverse  habits  and  occupations,  a  motley  throng 
indeed.  Despite  his  vivid  characterizations,  he  did 
not  succeed  in  interpreting  the  true  spirit  of  the  time 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  215 

as  Chaucer  did.  Chaucer's  vision  is  wider;  he  sees 
virtue  in  many  classes  of  society,  while  Langland  is  so 
intent  on  remedying  social  abuses  that  he  has  little 
sympathy  for '  any  one  but  his  plowman  hero.  Lang- 
land  shows  us  many  vividly  contrasted  types,  but 
Chaucer  introduces  us  more  intimately  to  the  people 
themselves.  He  makes  them  speak,  sometimes  for- 
mally, when  they  are  entertaining  the  rest  of  the 
pilgrims,  sometimes  informally,  but  always  naturally. 
What  any  group  of  persons  say  is  quite  as  important 
for  an  understanding  of  their  true  character  as  how  they 
look.  There  is  no  one  figure  in  the  Field  of  Folk  so 
complex  and  at  the  same  time  so  human  as  the  wife  of 
Bath,  but  if  Chaucer  had  contented  himself  with  mere 
description,  her  personality  would  have  been  far  less 
vivid.  The  same  is  true  of  many  of  the  other  charac- 
ters. And  Chaucer  had  a  sympathetic  understanding 
of  them  all.  It  is  indeed  rare  in  any  age  to  find  an 
author  with  interests  so  wide  as  to  embrace  all  classes 
of  people,  acquainted  with  all  kinds  of  story-telling, 
from  saints'  lives  to  the  coarse  jests  of  the  tavern,  and 
with  the  power  to  put  before  us  a  human  comedy  per- 
fectly representative  of  his  age,  making  his  men  and 
women  reveal,  by  means  of  narratives  told  by  them- 
selves, their  own  thoughts  and  ideals. 

For  such  a  task  as  this  Chaucer  was  particularly 
fitted  by  his  experience  with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
men.  He  lived  in  London,  then,  as  now,  the  heart  of 
England.  He  was  born  a  commoner,  but  he  spent  his 
earlier  years  at  the  royal  court.  He  was  thrown  on 
terms  of  intimacy  with  the  greatest  in  the  land,  he  was 
an  active  man  of  business,  he  was  a  traveler  in  foreign 


216  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

countries,  he  was  a  soldier  who  saw  active  service  in 
the  field,  he  was  a  member  of  Parliament,  and  the  holder 
of  various  public  offices,  and  he  was  a  diplomatist, 
engaged  in  important  and  confidential  negotiations. 
His  career  was  far  more  varied  than  Shakspere's,  it  will 
be  observed.  Shakspere  was,  indeed,  a  shrewd  man  of 
business,  he  lived  in  London  in  a  most  picturesque 
and  active  era,  and  he  was  on  intimate  terms  with 
persons  of  distinguished  birth  and  superior  breeding. 
But  that  he  was  ever  more  than  an  actor  and  a  sharer 
in  theatrical  enterprises  there  is  nothing  to  show.  His 
life  was  passed  in  the  midst  of  most  interesting  scenes, 
but  he  took  only  a  restricted  share  in  the  manifold 
activities  of  his  day.  He  was  able  to  devote  his  full 
energies  to  the  drama,  while  with  Chaucer  literary 
work  was  of  necessity  subordinated  to  business.  Shak- 
spere passed  the  best  years  of  his  life  in  the  atmosphere 
of  the  theater ;  Chaucer  was  constantly  obliged  to  give 
up  his  books  and  his  writing  in  order  to  discharge 
faithfully  the  duties  which  had  been  laid  upon  him. 
Charles  Lamb  used  to  assert  that  his  real  " works"  were 
in  the  rolls  of  the  East  India  Office;  Chaucer  might 
have  said  that  his  own  were  in  the  ledgers  of  the  Cus- 
toms Office  for  the  Port  of  London.  For  a  considerable 
time  he  was  obliged  to  fill  in  these  ledgers  with  entries 
in  his  own  handwriting.  In  this  work  many  hours  were 
consumed  which  might  have  given  classics  to  the  world. 
His  public  occupations  claimed  so  much  of  his  time 
through  the  prime  of  his  life  that  it  seems  a  marvel  that 
he  produced  as  much  as  he  did.  But  all  this  activity 
among  many  classes  of  men,  in  swarming  London,  in 
Italy  in  the  springtime  of  the  Renaissance,  in  France 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  217 

and  in  Flanders,  gave  him  the  breadth  of  view,  the  in- 
sight into  human  nature,  the  poise  of  judgment,  which 
make  his  work  so  perfect  a  mirror  of  his  own  day. 
Had  he  spent  more  time  among  his  books,  and  less  in 
the  great  world,  he  might  have  been  less  representative 
of  his  age.  The  imprisonment  of  his  gay  spirit  behind 
the  bars  of  routine  may  perhaps  have  even  given  his 
song  an  added  freshness  when  once  the  doors  of  his  cage 
were  opened. 

He  viewed  the  human  comedy  with  a  certain  detach- 
ment. As  a  man  of  the  world,  he  was  interested  in  a 
great  variety  of  things,  but,  like  Horace,  without  the 
deepest  feeling.  He  never  quite  lets  himself  go ;  if  he 
becomes  tragic  or  tender,  he  is  likely  to  turn  aside  with 
a  shrug  and  a  smile,  and  to  deny  his  own  emotion.  He 
identifies  himself  with  no  one  class  of  society ;  he  stands 
apart,  and  views  them  all  from  his  own  point  of  vantage. 
When  he  exposes  the  abuses  of  the  times,  he  is  rather 
amused  than  indignant.  If  monks  and  friars  steal 
from  the  poor,  and  meanwhile  line  their  own  pockets, 
he  has  more  real  delight  in  seeing  through  their  hypo- 
critical pretenses  than  he  has  righteous  anger  at  their 
villainy.  Nothing  pleases  him  more  than  to  set  two 
of  them  against  each  other,  to  make  the  summoner  and 
the  friar  expose  each  other's  tricks.  He  is  no  particular 
friend  of  the  commons.  He  hates  shams  and  hypocri- 
sies, in  whatever  station.  The  miller  who  steals  corn, 
or  the  sailor  who  is  sometimes  dishonest  and  cruel,  are 
treated  with  as  little  mercy  as  the  lawyer  or  the  doctor. 
Chaucer  does  not  lift  up  his  voice  in  favor  of  the  lower 
classes,  like  Langland  or  Gower.  In  fact  he  seems,  like 
Shakspere,  to  have  been  rather  impatient  of  the  multi- 


218  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

tude.  He  is  no  brother  of  the  men  who  gave  final  form 
to  the  stories  of  Reynard  the  Fox.  Probably  he  had 
seen  enough  of  the  turbulent  commons  of  his  day  to 
despise  their  instability  and  treachery.  "O  stormy 
people,"  he  exclaims,  "so  little  serious,  so  little  true  to 
what  you  say !  Ever  indiscreet,  changing  like  a 
weathercock,  delighting  in  rumor,  waxing  and  waning 
like  the  moon,  full  of  gabble,  your  judgments  are  false, 
your  constancy  is  vain,  the  man  who  believes  in  you 
is  a  great  fool !"  This  is  what  differentiates  Chaucer 
from  many  other  great  literary  men  of  his  day.  He 
had  no  desire  to  reform  the  world;  he  merely  strove 
to  show  it  as  it  was.  His  attitude  was  akin  to  that  of 
Shakspere  and  of  Moliere.  We  have  long  since  aban- 
doned the  absurd  notion  that  a  definite  didactic  pur- 
pose was  the  controlling  force  in  the  composition  of  the 
plays  of  Shakspere.  We  know,  too,  that  while  Moliere 
doubtless  produced  'Tartuffe'  partly  in  order  to  strike 
at  hypocrisy,  and  'L'Avare'  partly  to  expose  avarice, 
his  genius  was  not  confined  with  limits  so  narrow; 
his  ultimate  object  was  not  to  fulfil  the  functions  of  a 
Bossuet  or  of  a  La  Rochefoucauld,  but  to  show  life  in 
the  large  as  he  saw  it  in  the  brilliant  and  varied  society 
of  his  day. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  personality  of  the  author  is 
far  more  in  evidence  in  the  work  of  Chaucer  than  in 
the  plays  of  these  great  dramatists.  In  this  respect, 
Chaucer  is  more  like  Thackeray,  who  constantly  in- 
terrupts his  narrative  in  order  to  interject  remarks  in 
his  own  person.  Chaucer  rides  with  his  pilgrims,  he 
is  one  of  their  company,  he  tells  two  of  the  stories  him- 
self. But  he  is  not  content  to  appear  merely  as  a  char- 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  219 

acter,  he  speaks  out  as  author  too.  Sometimes  he  gets 
so  much  interested  in  his  tale  that  he  forgets  that  one 
of  his  characters  is  telling  it.  Suddenly  the  mask 
drops,  and  it  is  Chaucer  who  addresses  us  straight  from 
the  desk  where  he  is  writing,  and  not  even  from  his  place 
in  the  procession  on  the  road  to  Canterbury.  It  is 
surely  not  the  shy  and  serious  Oxford  student  who 
finishes  the  tale  of  the  patient  Griselda.  At  the  end  of 
the  story,  after  the  irritating  patience  of  the  virtuous  wife 
has  been  finally  rewarded,  a  half-waggish,  half-cynical 
epilog  follows,  at  which  we  have  already  glanced. 
Every  reader  must  feel  that  the  clerk  of  Oxford  has 
faded  out  of  the  picture  completely,  and  that  Chaucer 
has  usurped  his  place.  Rightly  enough  the  scribe  has 
written  above  the  lines,  "L'Envoy  de  Chaucer." 

Griselda  is  dead,  and  her  patience  too  !  And  I  warn  all  married 
men  not  to  try  the  patience  of  their  wives  in  the  hopes  of  finding  a 
Griselda,  for  they'll  surely  fail !  .  .  .  Stand  at  your  defense,  ye 
arch-wives,  I  counsel  you  !  Since  you  are  as  strong  as  camels,  don't 
suffer  men  to  offend  you  !  And  ye  slender  wives,  feeble  in  fighting, 
be  savage  as  Indian  tigers,  keep  on  gabbling  as  fast  as  a  mill,  I 
counsel  you !  .  .  .  Make  your  husbands  jealous,  and  you  shall 
make  them  couch  like  quails.  ...  Be  light  as  leaf  on  linden  tree, 
and  let  your  husbands  have  sorrow  and  weeping,  wailing  and  wring- 
ing of  hands ! 

Chaucer  was  not,  of  course,  the  originator  of  his 
tales;  he  borrowed  them  from  whatever  sources  he 
chose,  and  in  many  cases  these  sources  were  truly  popu- 
lar —  as  much  so  as  those  of  the  Robin  Hood  ballads 
or  of  the  stories  of  Reynard  the  Fox.  But  in  placing 
them  in  a  distinctive  and  picturesque  framework,  in 
which  he  himself  appeared,  Chaucer  emphasized  the 
personal  note  almost  as  much  as  he  did  by  his  comments 


220  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

delivered  in  his  capacity  as  author.  His  great  contem- 
porary and  master  in  story-telling,  Boccaccio,  does  not 
appear  among  the  noble  company  in  the  '  Decameron/ 
nor  does  he  express  his  own  ideas  about  their  conduct. 
Chaucer's  friend  and  fellow-townsman,  Gower,  speaks 
in  his  own  person  in  his  collection  of  tales,  the  'Con- 
fessio  Amantis/  but  only  as  a  sort  of  lay-figure,  con- 
versing with  an  impossible  half-mythological,  half- 
allegorical  figure,  the  Priest  of  Venus.  But  Chaucer 
moves  among  the  pilgrims  a  live  and  breathing  man, 
full  of  spirit  and  humor.  He  was  medieval  in  his  willing- 
ness to  tell  absurd  and  archaic  stories,  full  of  the  arti- 
ficial conventions  of  chivalry  or  the  exaggerations  of 
morality  and  religion  common  to  his  day,  but  he  was 
modern  in  his  fresh  and  common-sense  outlook  upon 
life,  and  in  his  willingness  to  let  this  influence  his  work. 
Even  when  he  is  not  speaking,  we  constantly  feel  his 
presence.  He  takes  us  into  his  confidence;  he  draws 
us  aside  and  laughs  with  us  at  the  merry  jest  of  life. 
By  a  supreme  stroke  of  genius,  he  reveals  to  us  a  per- 
sonality more  fascinating  and  more  complex  than  that 
of  any  of  his  pilgrims,  —  his  own. 

We  cannot  delay  over  an  analysis  of  his  genius ;  our 
main  emphasis  must  be  on  his  stories  and  their  signifi- 
cance for  the  social  conditions  of  his  age.  But  this 
may  be  said  ere  we  take  leave  of  him :  he  was  as  great 
a  poet  as  a  man  can  be  who  rarely  achieves  pathos  and 
who  never  attains  sublimity. 

We  have  now  reached  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  in  the  era  of  Chaucer,  stand  on  the  threshold  of 
modern  times.  The  Reformation  and  the  Renaissance 
are  to  bring  new  tendencies,  foreign  to  the  characteristic 


THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  221 

habits  of  medieval  thought.  New  interests  excite  the 
minds  of  men;  their  whole  angle  of  vision  changes. 
The  old  fashions  in  literature  have  not  lost  their  po- 
tency, of  course;  the  machinery  of  chivalry  is  destined 
to  survive  in  poetry,  as  in  society,  long  after  its  true 
glory  has  departed.  But  it  will  be  merely  as  a  survival, 
no  longer  with  the  freshness  of  youth  and  vigor  upon  it. 
The  mouthings  of  Hawes'  'Pastime  of  Pleasure'  weary 
us,  naturally,  but  even  so  noble  a  piece  of  prose  as  the 
'  Morte  Darthur '  or  so  great  a  poem  as  Spenser's '  Faery 
Queene'  are  really  archaisms,  divorced  from  intimate 
connection  with  the  times  in  which  they  were  produced. 
Literary  periods  are  hard  to  determine,  but  with  Chau- 
cer we  may  well  take  leave  of  a  definite  epoch,  and  turn 
the  leaf  to  a  new  chapter  of  history.  Our  present  task 
is  now  completed ;  before  leaving  it  we  may  take  one 
glance  behind  over  what  we  have  done. 

We  have  followed  from  the  beginnings  the  social  and 
political  progress  of  the  English  people,  beginning  with 
'  Beowulf/  which  reveals  a  people  democratic  in  instinct, 
though  aristocratic  in  political  organization,  —  a  people 
whose  hearts  were  chiefly  set  on  war,  who  felt  far  less 
the  calls  of  religion  and  of  patriotism.  In  the  '  Song  of 
Roland '  we  have  seen  how  the  incoming  French  brought 
with  them  new  ideals  of  the  Christian  faith  and  of  the 
love  of  country.  We  have  seen,  too,  how  the  Celtic 
peoples,  so  long  repressed  by  the  later  conquerors  of 
Britain,  came  into  their  own  at  last  by  impressing  their 
ideality  upon  the  France  of  a  later  day,  and  by  aiding  to 
create  that  finer  code  of  manners  and  morals  which  we 
call  chivalry.  We  have  seen  the  worldly  side  of  this  move- 
ment exemplified  in  Arthur,  Launcelot,  Gawain,  and 


222  MEDIEVAL  STORY 

Tristram ;  the  religious  side  in  the  legends  of  the  Holy 
Grail.  The  gap  between  the  upper  and  lower  classes  of 
society  is  widest  at  this  point ;  in  the  Arthurian  legends 
the  aristocracy  and  the  commons  are  far  apart  indeed. 
But  in  the  democratic  protests  of  Reynard  the  Fox  and 
of  Robin  Hood  the  people  asserted  their  rights.  At  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century,  these  two  tendencies, 
the  aristocratic  and  thp  democratic,  were  no  longer 
pursuing  independent  lines  of  development.  There 
was  an  end  to  stolid  acceptance  of  the  existing  order  of 
things  by  the  peasantry,  and  to  the  supreme  indifference 
of  the  ruling  classes  to  interests  other  than  their  own. 
It  was  no  longer  possible  for  each  to  go  its  own  way.  In 
spite  of  great  political  unrest,  of  grave  economic  and 
religious  disorders,  there  was  now  a  social  consciousness 
which  had  not  hitherto  existed.  Of  this  the  '  Canter- 
bury Tales '  are  the  literary  embodiment.  It  was  not, 
however,  a  time  of  final  adjustment;  it  was  an  era  of 
change  and  of  confusion.  Nor  were  the  years  immedi- 
ately following  to  bring  harmony.  The  Wars  of  the 
Roses  were  not  far  away ;  greater  religious  troubles  than 
Lollardry  were  on  the  horizon;  worse  monarchs  than 
Richard  the  Second  were  to  sit  on  the  throne  of  England. 
But  this  very  restlessness  and  change  was  itself  a  sign  of 
new  independence  of  thought  and  new  initiative  to  ac- 
tion. The  principle  of  the  modern  English  constitution 
that  the  people  as  a  whole  shall  govern  was  making  itself 
felt  in  good  earnest;  the  struggles  of  modern  times  were 
just  beginning.  With  these  later  struggles,  at  which  we 
have  glanced  in  the  opening  lecture,  we  are  not  here  con- 
cerned. But  we  shall  understand  better  their  complica- 
tions when  we  remember  the  characteristics  of  the  races 


I 

THE  CANTERBURY  TALES  223 

which  went  to  the  making  of  the  English  people,  their 
several  contributions  to  its  temper  and  spirit,  and  the 
changing  ideals  of  heroism,  patriotism,  religion,  and 
courtesy,  so  vividly  revealed  in  their  heroic  and  roman- 
tic stories,  ideals  from  which  has  sprung  the  finer  social 
consciousness  of  modern  times. 


APPENDIX 


SUGGESTIONS    FOR    SUPPLEMENTARY    READING 

(The  bibliographical  references  here  given  aim  merely  to 
suggest  some  of  the  more  helpful  editions,  translations,  and 
critical  discussions.  A  more  detailed  bibliography  will  be 
found  in  one  or  more  of  the  works  cited  under  each  subject- 
heading.) 

I.  General  Introduction.  W.  P.  Ker's  Epic  and  Romance 
(Macmillan,  1908)  forms  a  delightful  survey  of  the  principal 
types  of  medieval  literature.  A  review  of  the  development 
of  European  literature  as  a  whole  is  afforded  by  the  series 
edited  by  Saintsbury  (Scribner's,  1904,  etc.) :  The  Dark  Ages, 
by  W.  P.  Ker ;  The  Flourishing  of  Romance  and  the  Rise  of 
Allegory,  by  G.  Saintsbury ;  The  Fourteenth  Century,  by  F.  J. 
Snell.  For  a  compact  and  comprehensive  review  of  French 
literature  see  G.  Paris,  La  litter ature  frangaise  au  moyen  age 
(3d  ed.,  Paris,  Hachette,  1905) ;  or  Medieval  French  Litera- 
ture (London,  Dent,  1903)  in  the  Temple  Primers  Series.  For 
conditions  in  England  in  the  later  period  see  W.  H.  Schofield, 
English  Literature  from  the  Norman  Conquest  to  Chaucer 
(Macmillan,  1906).  Other  excellent  surveys  of  these  fields 
are  Petit  de  Julleville,  Histoire  de  la  langue  et  de  la  litterature 
frangaise,  —  contributions  by  various  scholars  —  Vols.  I  and 
II  (Paris,  Colin,  1896),  and  The  Cambridge  History  of  English 
Literature,  Vols.  I  and  II  (Putnam,  1907,  1908).  A  study  of 
medieval  literature  should  be  supplemented  by  the  use  of  a 
good  outline  of  historical  conditions,  such  as  J.  H.  Robinson's 
History  of  Western  Europe  (Ginn,  1903).  G.  B.  Adams' 
Civilization  during  the  Middle  Ages  (N.Y.,  1898)  will  be 

227 


228  APPENDIX 

found  very  suggestive.  Especial  mention  should  be  made 
of  Professor  W.  M.  Hart's  Ballad  and  Epic;  a  Study  in  the 
Development  of  the  Narrative  Art,  in  Harvard  Studies  and 
Notes,  Vol.  XI  (Ginn,  1907).  For  the  social  development  of 
the  English  people  the  reader  may  consult  the  large  work  by 
H.  D.  Traill,  Social  England,  6  vols.  (N.Y.,  1893-1897). 

II.  Beowulf.  Translated  into  alliterative  verse  by  F.  B. 
Gummere,  The  Oldest  English  Epic  (Macmillan,  1909),  with 
excellent  introduction  and  notes,  and  with  other  pieces  of 
Anglo-Saxon  heroic  verse  included.  Another  verse-render- 
ing is  that  by  J.  Lesslie  Hall  (Heath,  1901).  Of  prose  ver- 
sions, that  by  J.  R.  Clark  Hall  (London,  Sonnenschein,  1901) 
has  considerable  supplementary  material,  and  is  so  arranged 
as  to  bring  out  the  main  events  of  the  poem  distinctly; 
those  by  Child  (Riverside  Literature  Series,  Houghton,  Mifflin) 
and  C.  B.  Tinker  (N.Y.,  Newson,  1905)  are  inexpensive  and 
reliable.  These  translations  will  be  found  to  vary  consider- 
ably in  their  interpretation  of  specific  passages.  There  is  at 
present  no  adequate  discussion  in  English  of  the  many  vexed 
questions  relating  to  the  origin  and  development  of  the  poem. 
Analyses  in  encyclopedias  and  handbooks  should  be  taken 
with  great  caution.  The  student  may  be  referred  to  the 
brief  introduction  to  Gummere's  translation  cited  above. 
On  the  institutions  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  related  peoples, 
see  Gummere,  Germanic  Origins  (N.Y.,  Scribner's,  1892),  now 
unfortunately  hard  to  obtain.  Bibliographical  guidance  to 
works  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  period  will  be  found  in  H.  M. 
Ayres'  Bibliographical  Sketch  of  Anglo-Saxon  Literature  (N.Y., 
Lemcke  and  Buechner,  1910). 

The  best  critical  edition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  text  is  that  by 
Heyne  and  Socin,  revised  by  L.  L.  Schticking  (ninth  ed., 
Paderborn,  Schoningh,  1910).  There  are  texts  with  appa- 
ratus in  English  by  Wyatt  (Cambridge  University  Press, 
1898)  and  by  Sedgefield  (Manchester  University  Press,  1910). 


APPENDIX  229 

III.  The  Song  of  Roland.     A  convenient  and  inexpensive 
translation  into  English  prose  is  that  by  Miss  Isabel  Butler 
in  the  Riverside  Literature  Series  (Houghton,  Mifflin).     The 
poem  has  been  translated  into  English  verse  by  L.  Rabillon 
(Holt,  1885).     The  rendering  in  modern  French  prose  by  J. 
Geddes  (Macmillan,  1906)  contains   a   useful  bibliography 
and  an  elaborate  introduction,  which  will  put  the  student  in 
possession  of  the  main  facts  in  regard  to  the  history  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  poem,  and  will  suggest  the  best  sources 
for  further  reading.     A  useful  survey  of  the  Charlemagne  ro- 
mances is  provided  by  Miss  Jessie  L.  Weston's  The  Romance 
Cycle  of  Charlemagne  and  his  Peers,  in  Popular  Studies  in 
Mythology,  Romance,  and  Folklore,  No.  10  (London,  Nutt). 

Convenient  and  reliable  editions  of  the  original  Old  French 
text  are  those  by  Cledat  (Paris,  Gamier,  1893),  and  by  L. 
Gautier  (Tours,  Alfred  Mame),  the  latter  with  a  translation 
into  modern  French  opposite  the  original,  and  introduction, 
notes,  and  glossary.  For  beginning  a  study  of  the  Old  French 
text  the  little  volume  by  G.  Paris,  Extraits  de  la  Chanson  de 
Roland  (Paris,  Hachette),  may  be  recommended. 

IV.  The  Arthurian  Romances.     In  general,  consult  How- 
ard Maynadier,  The  Arthur  of  the  English  Poets  (Houghton, 
Mifflin,    1907);    Jessie  L.   Weston,   King   Arthur  and  His 
Knights,  a  Survey  of  Arthurian  Romance,  No.  4  of  the  Popu- 
lar Studies  (London,  Nutt) ;    and  Celtic  and  Medieval  Ro- 
mance by  A.  Nutt,  No.  1  of  the  Popular  Studies.     See  also 
article  "  Arthurian  Legends  "  in  the  revised  ed.  of  the  En- 
cyclopedia Americana,  by  W.  W.  Lawrence.     A  convenient 
translation  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth  and  other  early  chroni- 
clers will    be  found    in  Giles'  Six  Old  English  Chronicles 
(Bohn  Library).     For  a  paraphrase  of  selections  from  Chr6- 
tien's  romances,  see  W.  W.  Newell,  King  Arthur  and  the 
Table    Round,    2    vols.     (Houghton,    Mifflin,   1898).     The 
Mabinogion  may  be  read  in  the  admirable  translation  of  Lady 


230  APPENDIX 

Charlotte  Guest,  in  the  edition  with  explanatory  material  by 
Nutt  (London,  Nutt,  1902),  or  in  the  cheaper  edition,  without 
Nutt's  notes,  in  Everyman1  s  Library  (Button).  For  Aucassin 
and  Nicolete,  see  Andrew  Lang's  exquisite  rendering  (N.Y., 
1904).  The  Morte  Darthur  of  Malory  is  issued  in  one  vol- 
ume in  the  Globe  Edition  (Macmillan),  and  in  two  volumes  in 
Everyman's  Library.  There  are  selections  with  a  good  in- 
troduction by  Mead  in  the  Athenceum  Press  Series  (Ginn). 

V.  The  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail.     The  best  short  outline 
of  the  view  of  the  development  of  the  medieval  Grail  legend 
adopted  in  the  present  volume  is  that  by  Nutt,  No.  14  of  the 
Popular  Studies,    1902    (see   above).     Nutt's   larger   work, 
Studies  on  the  Legend  of  the  Holy  Grail,  is  rather  elaborate  for 
the  general  reader  (London,  Nutt,  1888).     See,  in  general, 
Maynadier,  The  Arthur  of  the  English  Poets  (see  above),  pp. 
106-152.     Wolfram   von   Eschenbach's    Parzival   has   been 
translated  into  English  verse  by  Miss  Jessie  L.  Weston,  2  vols. 
(Nutt,  1894).     On  the  Crusades,  see  Archer  and  Kingsford, 
The  Crusades  (Putnam,  1910).     A  translation  of  Villehar- 
douin's  and  of  Joinville's  memoirs  is  published  in  Everyman's 
Library  (Button).     A  popular  statement  of  the  "  nature- 
ritual  "  theory  by  Miss  Weston  may  be  found  in  Folk-Lore, 
Vol.  XVIII  (1907),  pp.  282-305.     A  more  elaborate  study, 
though  hardly  suited  for  the  general  reader,  is  that  by  W.  A. 
Nitze,  in  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of 
America,  New  Series,  Vol.  XVII,  pp.  365  ff.  (1909). 

VI.  Reynard  the  Fox.    A  retelling  of  the  story  in  English 
prose  by  Joseph  Jacobs  appears  in  the  Home  Library  (N.Y., 
A.  L.  Burt  and  Co.).     There  is  a  rendering  in  English  verse 
by  F.  S.  Ellis,  The  History  of  Reynard  the  Fox  (London,  Nutt, 
1894) .     The  prose  version  by  William  Caxton  has  been  edited 
by  Arber  for  the  English  Scholar's  Library  (London,  1878). 
It  may  also  be  found  in  W.  J.  Thorns'  Early  English  Prose 
Romances  (Routledge).     For  the  original  Old  French  text  of 


APPENDIX  231 

the  Roman  de  Renart  see  the  edition  by  E.  Martin,  3  vols. 
(Strassburg  and  Paris,  1882-1887).  For  a  paraphrase  of  the 
Roman  in  modern  French,  consult  Potvin,  Le  Roman  du 
Renard,  mis  en  vers,  precede  d'une  introduction  et  d'une  bibli- 
ographic (Paris  and  Brussels,  1861) .  For  general  observations, 
the  discussion  by  M.  Sudre,  in  the  second  volume  of  Petit  de 
Julleville's  Histoire  (see  above)  will  be  found  excellent. 

VII.  The  Ballads  of  Robin  Hood.    The  standard  collection 
of  the  English  and  Scottish  ballads  is  that  edited  by  Child 
(Houghton,  Mifflin,  1882-1898),  5  vols.,  with  elaborate  intro- 
ductions, variant  versions,  etc.     The  smaller  edition  on  the 
basis  of  this  collection  by  Sargent  and  Kittredge  (Houghton, 
Mifflin,  1904)  forms  a  convenient  volume  for  the  student. 
The  Selections  edited  by  F.  B.  Gummere  in  the  Athenceum 
Press  Series  (Ginn)  is  provided  with  an  excellent  introduction 
and  notes.     For  a  still  more  extended  discussion  of  ballads 
and  ballad-problems,  see  Gummere's    The  Popular  Ballad 
(Houghton,  Mifflin,  1907)  —  especially  pp.  266-285  for  Robin 
Hood ;  and  W.  H.  Clawson,  The  Gest  of  Robin  Hood  (  Univer- 
sity of  Toronto  Studies,  Toronto,  1909). 

VIII.  The  Canterbury  Tales.     The  standard  edition  of  the 
complete  works  of  Chaucer  is  that  by  Skeat  in  seven  volumes 
—  the  seventh  containing  miscellaneous  pieces  not  by  Chau- 
cer (Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  1900).     The  one- volume  Stu- 
dents' Edition  of  the  complete  works  by  Skeat  (Clarendon 
Press),  and  the  somewhat  similar  Globe  Edition  prepared  by 
Pollard  and  others  (Macmillan),  may  be  recommended.    The 
Canterbury  Tales  are  issued  separately  in  clearer  type,  and 
with  brief  notes  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  in  a  two-volume 
edition  by  Pollard  (Macmillan,  1894).     For  those  who  wish 
an  introduction  to  the  language,  versification,  etc.,  of  the  Tales 
the  editions  of  the  Prolog,  Knight's  Tale,  and  Nun's  Priest's 
Tale  by  Liddell  (Macmillan)  may  be  recommended.     Briefer 
introductory  material  for  these  three  texts  is  provided  in  the 


232  APPENDIX 

editions  of  Morris  and  Skeat  (Clarendon  Press)  and  Mather 
(Houghton,  Mifflin).  The  best  manual  for  the  general  stu- 
dent is  Root's  Poetry  of  Chaucer  (Houghton,  Mifflin,  1906). 
The  Chaucer-Bibliography  by  Miss  Eleanor  P.  Hammond 
(Macmillan,  1908)  is  indispensable  for  any  detailed  study. 
G.  G.  Coulton's  Chaucer  and  his  England  (Putnam,  1908) 
and  Jusserand's  English  Wayfaring  Life  in  the  Fourteenth 
Century  (London,  Unwin,  1901)  give  a  good  idea  of  the  man- 
ners and  customs  of  the  day.  SnelPs  Age  of  Chaucer  (Bell, 
1901)  is  not  wholly  satisfactory,  but  deserves  mention;  also 
Lounsbury's  Studies  in  Chaucer,  3  vols.  (Harpers).  Professor 
Lounsbury's  conclusions  must  frequently  be  corrected  by  the 
researches  of  later  scholars. 


INDEX 


Abbey,  H.  E.,  136. 

^Esop,  146. 

Allegory,  in  animal  stories,  152  ff. ; 
in  'Romance  of  Reynard,'  166  ff. 

Allen  a  Dale,  182. 

Apponyi,  Count,  10. 

Aristocratic  Elements  in  'Beowulf,' 
50,  52  ;  in  '  Song  of  Roland,'  82  f. ; 
in  Arthurian  Romances,  89 ;  in 
'Canterbury  Tales,'  208  ff. ;  in 
fourteenth-century  England,  222. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  47,  108. 

Arthur,  King,  14,  34,  95,  178.  (See 
Arthurian  Romances.) 

Arthurian  Romances,  85-112. 

Aucassin  and  Nicolete,  103  ff. 

Asceticism  in  Grail  Legends,  130  ff. 

B 

Ballads,  communal,  174  ff. 

Ballads  of  Robin  Hood,   see  Robin 

Hood. 

Beast-epic,  154  ff. 
Beast-tales,  146  ff. 
Bellidor,  135. 

'Beowulf,'    14,    17,   27-53,    198,  221. 
Beowulf,  character  of,  43  ff. 
Berylune,  145  f. 
'Blue  Bird,  The,'  145. 
Boccaccio,  19,  220. 
Bornier,  Henri  de,  60. 
Bouillon,  Godfrey  of,  118. 
Bramimonde,  82. 
Brer  Rabbit,  148  f.,  158. 
British  and  American  ideals,  9  ff. 
Brown,  William  Garrott,  6. 
Bruin  the  Bear,  162. 
Butler,  Nicholas  Murray,  5. 
Byron,  20  f. 

C 

'  Canterbury  Tales,'  15,  195-223. 
Caxton,  156,  160. 


Celtic  elements  in  Arthurian  Ro- 
mances, 107  ff.,  127. 

'  Chantecler,'  by  Rostand,  153. 

Chanticleer,  158,  162. 

Charlemagne,  character   of,    79,    92. 

Chaucer,  20,  193,  215-220. 

Chivalry,  89,  101  ff.,  121,  192,  210  ff., 
213,  221. 

Chretien  de  Troyes,  19,  128. 

Coleridge,  21,  175. 

Conduiramur,  123. 

'  Confessio  Amantis,'  220. 

'  Connecticut  Yankee  in  King  Ar- 
thur's Court,'  87  f. 

Cook,  in  '  Canterbury  Tales,'  204. 

Couart,  154,  158. 

Cowboy  Songs,  171  ff. 

Cromer,  Lord,  6. 

Crusades,  21,  117,  140. 


Dante,  19. 

'  Decameron,'  220. 

Democratic  forms  of  government, 
4  ff.,  222. 

Democratic  tendencies  in  Robin 
Hood  Ballads,  178  ;  in  '  Canterbury 
Tales,'  206  f.;  in  fourteenth-cen- 
tury England,  192  f.,  222. 

Dietrich  of  Bern,  33. 

Don  Quixote,  109  f. 

Doumic,  Ren6,  25. 

Dragons  in  early  story,  40. 


E 

Ecclesiastics,  in  Robin  Hood  Ballads, 
185  f. ;  in  'Canterbury  Tales/ 
203 ;  in  fourteenth-century  Eng- 
land, 192. 

Eginhard,  70. 

Epic,  growth  of,  36  ff.,  71,  80,  177. 

Etiquet  in  'Beowulf,'  50  f. 


233 


234 


INDEX 


F 

Fabliaux,  212. 

Faery  Queene,  221. 

Fisher  King,  124  ff. 

France,   derivation  of  name,   63  f . ; 

influence  of,  in  medieval  romance, 

99    f. ;     influence    of,  in    Reynard 

stories,  164  ff. 

Franklin,  in  'Canterbury  Tales,'  202. 
Friar,    in    'Canterbury  Tales/    203. 
Friar  Tuck,  182. 
Foreign  elements  in   United  States, 

11  f. 

G 

Galahad,  132  ff.,  136. 

Ganelon,  73  ff. 

Gawain,  100,  106,  127,  128,  207,  210. 

Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  98. 

'Gest  of  Robin  Hood,'  177,  181  ff. 

Gladden,  Dr.  Washington,  7. 

Gower,  193,  220. 

Grail,  Legend  of  the,  see  Holy  Grail. 

Grendel,  35,  37,  47. 

Grimbert,  162  f. 

Griselda,  213,  219. 

Gurnemanz,  123  f. 


Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  146. 

Hawker,  Stephen,  136. 

Hersent,  162,  166. 

High    Sheriff    of    Nottingham,    186. 

Historical    Elements    in    'Beowulf,' 

41  f. ;    in  'Song  of  Roland,'  70  f. ; 

in  Robin  Hood  Ballads,   179 ;    in 

Arthurian  story,  94  f. 
Holy  Grail,  Legend  of  the,  113-141. 
Homeric  poems,  17,  36,  48. 
Host,    in    'Canterbury    Tales,'    201, 

205,  207. 

Hrothgar,  34,  41,  51. 
Humanitarian  elements  in  romances, 

111;      in    Robin    Hood    Ballads, 

184  ff. 
Humor  in  'Song  of  Roland,'  83;   in 

'Reynard    the   Fox,'    164    ff. ;     in 

Robin    Hood    Ballads,     186;      in 

'Canterbury    Tales,'    212,    219. 
Hygelac,  42,  95. 


Imaginative  elements  in  'Beowulf,' 
39  ff. ;  in  'Song  of  Roland,'  71  ff.  ; 
in  Arthurian  Romances,  91  ff., 
107  ff. ;  in  Robin  Hood  Ballads, 
179;  in  beast  literature,  147  ff. 

Isengrim,  154  f.,  161. 


Jatakas,  150. 
Joinville,  Jean  de,  118. 
Jungle-Books,  146. 
Just-So  Stories,  150  f. 


Kaa,  158. 

Keats,  175. 

King  Noble  the  Lion,  161  ff. 

King    of    England,    in    Robin   Hood 

Ballads,  188  f. 
'Kinmont  Willie,'  176. 
Kipling,  22,  23,   146,   150,   161,   176. 
Knight,  in  'Canterbury  Tales,'  202, 

205,  212. 

Knights  Templars,  119. 
Kondrie,  125. 


La  Fontaine,  153. 
Langland,  192,  214. 
Launcelot,  134,  207. 
'Launfal,  Vision  of  Sir,'  138. 
Little  John,  182  ff.,  187  f.,  189  f. 
Lohengrin,  126  f. 
Louis  XIV,  51,  153. 
Longfellow,  175. 
Lowell,  J.  R.,  5,  83,  138. 

M 

'Mabinogion,'  96  ff. 

Macaulay,  84. 

Maeterlinck,  135,  145  ft. 

Maid  Marian,  182,  191. 

Maleperduys,  159,  163. 

Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  137. 

Manciple,     in     'Canterbury    Tales,' 

204. 

Marie  de  France,  19. 
Marionettes,  57. 


INDEX 


235 


Matthews,  Brander,  161. 
'Medieval,'   meaning  of  term,   25  f. 
Miller,   in   'Canterbury   Tales,'   212. 
Milton,  90. 
Moliere,  218. 
Monaco,  3,  5. 

Monk,   in   'Canterbury  Tales,'   203. 
Morris,  William,  136,  175. 
'Morte  Darthur,'  137  f.,  221. 
Montsalvatch,  125. 
Much,  in  Robin  Hood  Ballads,  182  ff. 
Mythology,  in   '  Beowulf '  46  f . ;    in 
Arthurian  Romances,  93. 

N 

Nature-ritual  theory,  128. 

Nennius,  96. 

Nibelungenlied,  63. 

Normans,     characteristics     of,     62 ; 

origin  of,  63. 
Nutt,  Alfred,  122  f. 

O 

Oliver,  character  of,  78. 

Outlaw,  significance  of  term,  189. 


Pardoner,     in     'Canterbury     Tales,' 

203. 

Paris,  Gaston,  60. 

Parson,  in  '  Canterbury  Tales,'  203. 
'Parsifal,'  136. 
'Pastime  of  Pleasure,'  221. 
Patriotism,   among  English-speaking 
people,  29;    lack  of   in  'Beowulf,' 

30  ff.,  35  f. ;    in  'Song  of  Roland,' 
59  f.,  64,  80 ;    in  Arthurian  Story, 
92;    in  Robin  Hood  Ballads,   188. 

Percival,  123  ff.,  133  f. 

Piers  Plowman,  214. 

Pilgrimages,  198  ff. 

Pinte,  162. 

Political   conditions,  of   Heroic  Age, 

31  f. ;    in  'Song  of   Roland,'   60; 
in  Arthurian  Romances,  94. 

Prince  of  Aragon,  181. 
Prioress,  in  'Canterbury  Tales,'  202. 
Prioress  of  Kirklees,  189. 
Provencal  elements  in  romance,  101. 


R 

Raven,  in  'Reynard  the  Fox,'  159  f. 

'Recessional,'  22. 

Religious  elements  in  'Beowulf,'  48, 
49;  in  'Song  of  Roland,'  80  f . ; 
in  Arthurian  Romances,  109  f . ; 
in  Grail  Legends,  129  ff . ;  in  '  Rey- 
nard the  Fox,'  194;  in  Robin 
Hood  Ballads,  182. 

'Reynard  the  Fox,'  15,  140,  143-168, 
193  f.;  211,  222. 

Robin  Hood,  15,  178  ff. 

Robin  Hood  Ballads,  169-194,  211, 
222. 

Roland,  character  of,  77  f. 

'Roland,  Song  of,'  14,  17,  34,  52, 
55-84,  198,  221. 

Roland-statues,  59. 

'Romance  of  Reynard,'  156  ff. 

'Romance  of  the  Rose,'  105. 

Rossetti,  175. 

S 

Salvation  Army,  115  f.,  140. 

Satire  in  beast-epic,  155,  161,  166  ff. ; 

in    'Canterbury   Tales,'   211,    213. 
Scandinavian  elements  in  'Beowulf,' 

30  f.,  34. 

Scathelock,  182  ff. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  21,  175. 
Shakspere,  29,  42,  43,  46,  75,  78,  90, 

109,    159,    191,   216,   218. 
Shelley,  21. 

Shipman,  in  'Canterbury  Tales,'  204. 
'Sister  Beatrice,'  135  f. 
'Sleeping  Beauty  in  the  Wood,'  24. 
Social  conditions  in  America,  7  ff. ; 

in   Heroic  Age,    51    ff.;    in   feudal 

period,  89  ;    in  fourteenth  century, 

202. 

'Song  of  the  Saxons,'  18  f. 
Squire,  in    'Canterbury  Tales,'    202. 
Story-telling  in  early  days,   16  ff. 
Stubbs,  Bishop,  118. 
Subjectivity  in  literature,  18  ff.,  213  f. 
Sudre,  Leopold,  163. 
Summoner,    in    'Canterbury    Tales,' 

203. 
Supernatural  elements  in  'Beowulf,' 

47;    in  'Song  of  Roland,'  81;    in 


236 


INDEX 


Arthurian    Romances,    93,    96  f., 
107;    in  Grail  Legends,    126  ff. 
Swinburne,  21. 


Tabard  Inn,  201. 

Taillefer,  61. 

Tennyson,  20,  112,  130,  132,  136. 

Thackeray,  16,  218. 

Topaz,  Sir,  211. 

Treason,    as   a   motive   in    *  Song   of 

Roland,'  73  ff. 
Twain,  Mark,  87  ff. ;  90  f. 
Tybert,  162. 
Tylette,  145. 
Tylo,  146. 

U 

Uncle  Remus,  Tales  of,  148  ff.,  151, 
164. 


Valor,  as  a  motive  in  the  'Song  of 

Roland,'  68. 
Vengeance,  duty  of  in  early  society, 

75. 

W 

Wagner,   Richard,   24,   33,   63,    136. 

Wat  Tyler,  192. 

Wicklif,  193. 

Wife  of  Bath,  200,  202,  208  ff. 

Woman,  in  'Beowulf,'  49  f. ;  in  'Song 
of  Roland,'  81  f . ;  in  Arthurian 
Romances,  102  ff. ;  in  Holy  Grail 
Legends,  133  ff. ;  in  Ballads  of 
Robin  Hood,  191;  in  'Canter- 
bury Tales,'  213  f. 

Wordsworth,  20  f. ;  175. 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  19,  122. 


Yeoman,  in  'Canterbury  Tales,'  204. 


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